Rirob

My doctor highly recommends that people don't try surgery as the likely hood that surgery will solve your sleep apnea issues are slim to none! I'm at my last resort trying a bipap machine with nasal pillows hoping it will eventually help or help cure my sleep apnea?

This is my third try with a machine. I've also tried a periodontist made orthotic device and to date nothing has helped due to my severe claustrophobia. I've had my new machine only a few days now with the nasal pillows and I still can't wear it all night, but do wear it for a few hours before I take it off.

Not sure if you want to go through all the trouble of those surgeries if only to find it doesn't help your sleep apnea? My doctors have told me that the surgeries are hard on you and the recovery is "very rough"!

As the others have said, get a second opinion and maybe even a third before you go the surgical route.

Good luck to you.

Rob

I have really bad sleep apnea, I also have really bad claustrophobia. Not a good combination for getting any type of rest from sleeping while using a machine that either puts a mask on your face or sticks nasal pillows on your nose and blows air down your throat.

I tried a cpap positive air machine twice, failed it both times because I would wake up and have this strong air being blown into my throat so hard that I couldn't breath. Then I would rip the mask off and couldn't use it again that night. Next night and nights after I would try to fall asleep and either couldn't because I had the thought of the air being blown into my airway and not breathing, or fall asleep and wake up and rip my mask off again. Each time I tried the cpap, years apart I never could use the machine all night.

In the past three years I've been trying to get help again, tried losing weight, can't lose much because I have a horrible back which has disabled me and doesn't allow me to be very active. Then I had an oral appliance made, $300 out of my pocket plus what insurance covered to find out it's great at preventing my teeth from grinding, but not very good for my sleep apnea. Now I just got a bipap, nasal pillows where the machine only blows hard when I'm sleeping and it senses an obstruction, or my mouth open because I'm a mouth breather.

So, using the bipap so far has been a struggle. First I'm finding it hard to actually fall asleep, then if I do fall asleep I wake up with my mouth open and the air blowing out my mouth. So to date, I still don't get much sleep because I'm always waking up to change position due to back pain, and when I do finally get up I'm still as tired or even more tired then when I went to bed.

Suggestions on how I can get used to using this bipap machine and nasal pillows so I can get some rest when I am sleeping? I'd sure appreciate it! I'm afraid that if something doesn't happen soon, one of these nights I'll go to sleep and not wake up when I stop breathing.

Not sure of my actual numbers, but I do remember after my last sleep test at the testing facility the woman told me that I stop breathing over 100 times an hour.

Thanks