Otherwise known as CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure).
I’ve snored most of my life and now have been diagnosed with sleep apnea. This means that I stop breathing while I’m asleep. It doesn’t sound awful until you start reading more about it and realize the lack of oxygen and the lack of real sleep can kill you over time. Even before it kills you, it can wreck havoc on your life.
For myself, I’d been going to bed earlier and earlier and still woke up exhausted and usually with a headache it would take me most of the day to get rid of, only to have a headache the next day as well. I had no energy and kept forgetting things all the time. I would constantly be in danger of falling asleep at my desk and there were times I’d take a nap in the car before driving home, lest I fall asleep at the wheel. What I had been putting down to stress and a toxic Evil Day Job turned out to be something more – sleep apnea.
I went for a sleep study where they hook you up to all sorts of monitoring equipment and then you get to (try to) sleep while they monitor what’s going on. They woke me up partway through the night and put me on a CPAP machine for the rest of the night and adjusted the pressure until they got rid of most of the incidents of apnea and hypopnea.
I went back a week later and picked up my diagnosis and a rental machine plus mask and various accouterments. I’ve had claustrophobia for years and thought I would really suffer but there’s only been one night in the three months since I went on CPAP that I didn’t use the machine and it sucked so badly, I never missed another night. Now it’s almost pavlovian – I get into bed and put on the mask, turn on the machine and read for about ten minutes then go to sleep.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that it’s NOT sexy. It’s not noisy but having a big mask tied to your face with a hose leading off the bed is sorta… weird. Mr. Maura does say that the breeze from the mask is much easier to cope with than my snoring.
I highly recommend everyone look at the symptoms of sleep apnea and, if they feel they might have it, get tested. There are several treatment options but I chose CPAP because it was non-invasive and pretty well proven. I know a lot of CPAP users hate the fact they are using a machine but I guess my pragmatism shows in that I feel liberated by getting real sleep and rest rather than imprisoned by a machine. The reality is that I do have sleep apnea – I can choose how to treat it or even not to treat it, but a price is associated with every one of these choices. The CPAP is my choice and I’ll make the most of it.
I’m also going to work at losing weight but there’s no guarantee that it will help my apnea. It may make no change at all. The idea that sleep apnea only affects the overweight is a huge myth that I think encourages people who should be checked to not do so because they aren’t overweight. It’s all about individual anatomy and muscle/sleep behavior.
I’m already doing much better. I really sleep and I wake up on my own. I no longer wake up with headaches and I don’t try to fall asleep at my desk anymore. Now when I’m tired, it seems to be a more normal tired – not exhaustion.
I’m really tempted to be-dazzle my mask, though. I wonder if that would make it feel any sexier?
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Maura,
You’re not alone. My experience with the CPAP is a lot like yours:
I was a snorer for a long time. As I got older, my snoring got more frequent and louder. I also noticed I was tired a lot and liked to take naps during the day. I was overweight. People complained about my snoring and I did not want to sleep in the same room with other people for fear of keeping them awake.
Finally, I talked with a doctor about the problem. He sent me home with a machine to check my breathing and pulse while I slept. The results really shocked me! The doc said my airway was closing off up to 70 times each hour, and that I stopped breathing for as long as one full minute at a time! I had severe apnea. He strongly recommended I start using the CPAP machine, since I was risking damage to my heart due to lack of oxygen.
I had read about CPAP machines before and always thought I would never be able to sleep with one, since I am a little claustrophobic. Surprisingly, it only took me a few minutes to get used to, and I was able to start sleeping comfortably right away.
The mask part is just a small nose manifold that covers the nostrils to blow in air. That keeps the throat inflated like a balloon, preventing throat closures and snoring. One problem is the straps over the head that keep the nose piece in place. They can be a little annoying at first, and if you change sleeping positions at night, it is possible for these straps to move, causing the nose piece to slip off.
I have been using a Dreamhelmet (a combination sleep mask sound-muffling pillow) for years now, to sleep at night and for napping during the day. I always find it hard to sleep without the Dreamhelmet, and was afraid I would not be able to use it with the CPAP mask, but I was wrong about that too.
After using the CPAP machine and mask for a short while, I tried wearing the Dreamhelmet over the CPAP mask, covering up the straps – voila, it worked like a charm! I found that the Dreamhelmet actually helps keep the straps in place when I change positions, so now I can sleep all night in comfort, not being bothered by sound, light, or changing positions. for under 30 bucks at http://www.dreamhelmet.com
Now I don’t snore, I wake up rested, and I have energy that lasts all day long. I’m still overweight, but I don’t feel so run down all the time or feel like I need an afternoon nap.
by Joe December 16th, 2009 at 8:03 pmThanks for sharing your experience, Joe!
I’ve never seen the Dreamhelmet before. Might be worth a small investment to see if it helps the strap slipping issues…
Hoseheads unite!
by Maura Anderson December 16th, 2009 at 8:12 pm