DanM

Hi Norine. I'm sorry to hear you are having a hard time adjust to your CPAP. Three nights means you are really new, and adjusting does take time. Consider practicing wearing the machine while you read or watch television in the evenings to get used to the way everything feels. You might also practice laying in bed and getting into a the position you find comfortable for sleeping. Troubleshoot your mask leaks while you are awake and practicing. If you continue to find the mask leaks too much, I encourage you to call the equipment provider. It may be that a different mask style or size will help. As for the dry mouth, are you using a humidifier with your machine? If so, is it adjusted properly? Sometimes just increasing the humidification setting can help. Best wishes, and I hope thing start to improve quickly!

Welcome, Vallery! Glad to hear treatment is already helping. Feel free to continue to share your experiences!

Hi SassyMom,

Both wiredgeorge and Sleep have provided good feedback about the mask leak and squealing issues. Moleskin is a soft fabric that can be cut to fit. Some people make a few of these and just hand wash them as needed. If you continue to have mask leak and noise issues, please do consider contacting your home care provider. There are numerous masks available in many shapes, sizes and materials from many manufacturers. They should help you find the best mask for you needs. I wear a mask and have been on therapy for a number of years. Simply keeping your face and your mask clean should help with the leaks, and no specific brand of soap is required. Drying your skin too much can lead to irritation from the mask being placed on top of the dry skin. Cleanse your face at night using whatever cleanser works best for your skin, and make sure to completely rinse any cleanser and dry your skin. As for ASV, it is an adaptive treatment. CPAP offers a fixed, positive pressure that blows air into the airway. BiPAP offers 2 pressures, and those pressure change as you inhale and exhale. ASV is a treatment that adapts to your breathing with varying pressures, and it can treat both obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea. Using ASV does not mean you are one step away from being on a ventilator, and I am sorry you were given that message. However, it is a treatment for patients with more complex breathing issues, and I encourage you to follow up with your sleep physician to learn as much as possible about your diagnosis. As you said, to pleasant dreams!

Hi Ben. Whether you need a sleep study in a lab or in the home will depend on the assessment of the physician. However, sleep studies in the home are generally much less expensive for obtaining a straightforward OSA diagnosis. If there are other health conditions to be considered that may have an impact on the sleep study, the physician may recommend an in-lab study. Most medical insurance plans pay for sleep studies, and your provider should be able to tell you if they provide that coverage and exactly what kind of testing they will pay for. Best wishes!

Hello, and good question. The AHI is an index, so it is an average of total events per hour. An AHI of 0.5 would indeed indicate that you are having about 1 event every 2 hours. Someone who sleeps for 8 hours and has an AHI of 0.5 would have 4 events over the course of the 8 hours.

Hi compwiz878. Glad to hear you CPAP machine has helped with your apnea. Hopefully, this will continue for you. Happy sleeping!

Hi there. I replied to your other post about how to proceed with testing. Feel free to ask any other questions, and good luck! Sleep that is interrupted by symptoms of sleep apnea can cause fatigue and sleepiness, so I hope you get some answers soon.

Hi Ben, and welcome to MyApnea.Org! The majority of patients seek a referral to a sleep physician from their primary doctor. Exactly how you proceed with your next step will somewhat depend on whether you are a self-pay patient or on the type of insurance you have. Some insurance plans allow patients to schedule directly with a specialist, while other require the referral. Either way, your ultimate goal should be to see a physician who can order a sleep study. Some sleep studies are performed in a sleep lab while others can be performed in the home using a small device you wear overnight. There really is not a reliable way to self-diagnose, and you should be evaluated by a physician to see what type of study and/or treatment is best for you. Good luck, and please keep us posted on your progress!

Hello. CPAP does not normally cause balance problems. However, some patients do report a slight feeling of lightheadedness when first waking up in the morning. I have most often seen this in patients new to CPAP who are experiencing low blood pressure upon awakening after wearing CPAP. When performing a study in a sleep lab on a patient who is new to CPAP, and because of this potential lowering of the blood pressure, technologists often ask patients to sit up slowly and sit on the side of the bed for a few minutes before standing. I encourage you to talk to your doctor about your lack of balance to see if there are other factors that may be contributing. Please let us know how you're doing!

Hi Roy. Mask leak can fluctuate, and I would wonder if your machine data shows that your mask leak occurs on the nights when your AHI is elevated. Even a slight displacement with some masks and patients can cause an increase in AHI. This is because the air pressure is not going into you airway, but is escaping through the leak. I am sometimes hesitant to trust the percentages reported for leak by some of the equipment. I think continuing to use your therapy as you are now while adjusting to treatment and monitoring your mask leak numbers makes sense. If you continue to notice elevated AHIs after another couple of weeks, it may be good to explore whether mask leak is contributing. Hopefully, you will also start to sleep better as you continue to adjust to your therapy. Please keep us posted!