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I've had worse foot swelling since on CPAP. I had a complete heart work up before I began it so that's not it, and my kidney function is fine. Cutting my sodium intake has seemed to help. Not sure what the relationship is between the two but I thought I'd throw it out there.
I have had problems with dry eyes and mouth. I've bought eye ointment, "dry mouth" mouthwash, swim goggles, and a wide chin strap. I couldn't tolerate the goggles and the ointment makes my eyes feel worse. The mouthwash helps some. The chin strap has been the best purchase so far, it really helps with the dry mouth.
I still get sore skin, with ridges, on my head and neck. I've been adjusting the headgear (I had to switch to a total face mask because air was blowing through my tear ducts!), focusing on making it comfortable. One thing my RT said was make a mark with a sharpie before you adjust anything and make small adjustments. That's really helped a lot.
I'd estimate that I have a compliance rate in excess of 99%, because, you see, I have this distinct distaste to waking up dead.
My sentiments exactly.
I haven't gone camping in years, but I'm a vendor at shows, and a backup would be nice for long drives when I have to pull over and get some sleep. I'm looking at batteries now, as well as a backup power supply for home (we get power outages during storm season).
Snuffie, I felt that way at first. Hard to believe it's been five months since I ended up in the ER with chest pain and two and a half since I got my CPAP. The last two months have been spent trying a different thing every night to see if I could find a way to sleep comfortably. I had all sorts of problems with the mask, the headgear, etc, and I'd say 85-90% of this has been corrected. But I had to be proactive and not wait for anyone else to make it easy. Looking at it as a puzzle to be solved (at least for me) made the process much better.
A chin strap has really helped me. Making sure I'm hydrated helps too. I rarely have dry mouth anymore.
It was hard to do at first. I can see why people stop.
Personally, I didn't care about how it looked - I figure I'm asleep, what do I care? But a lot of people care about that.
My problem was that at first it was really uncomfortable. Dry eyes, dry mouth, ridges on the face, neck pain, headaches - it was all from not wearing it right or needing other things. I got this over the counter eye ointment which helps a lot, and I'm going to get swim goggles to wear which will hopefully take care of the dry eye issue altogether. I got a chin strap which helped the dry mouth, and loosened up on the mask. I'm not worrying about leak anymore - my only concern is my events per hour. I hover around 1-2, so I feel like it's going well.
I think the big issue is that the doctors and therapists don't tell people what to do or how to mitigate these things. And a lot of people with sleep apnea have gotten used to feeling bad so when they feel worse at first it is really discouraging.
Same here.
Humidity will help, and you can use a humidifier in your room if you want which might help.
I use an over the counter eye ointment which helps quite a bit.
Having the same issue. For example: last night I got a zero score on MyAir for leaks (as in really bad), yet had 0.7 events/hour (was having 14/hr on the home sleep study).
