I just want to die

First, I am sorry you are feeling so bad. Wanting to sleep but not being able to is very frustrating. Probably two of my worst sleeps in my life was the night of my sleep study, and then the first night on the CPAP. Once I get anxious I then can't sleep.

I found your original post from two months ago. For some reason it is locked and you cannot reply to it. I am a new member here, and don't recall seeing it. I copied it and pasted it below. Here are my thoughts on your issues.

1. On the issue of wearing a CPAP there are some things that can be done to improve comfort; the mask, the initial start pressure, the type of ramp, and the minimum pressure. If you would post what type a machine you have and let us know what these pressure settings are we may be able to make some suggestions for improvement.

2. On the issue of feeling reasonably comfortable with the CPAP, but now not being able to sleep it would seem that there may be an issue of insomnia and the CPAP possibly just being one of a number of factors. I have posted a link below to a site which was formed to help people with insomnia and wanting to address it without any sleeping pills or a very minimum dose. The site was initiated by a pharmacist in Canada who became concerned that too many sleeping pills are being used and in addition to other side effects many of the older patients are using them to the extent they become disoriented, have falls, and are breaking their hips. He advocates the use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia, or CBTi. There is a lot of good information at the site. In particular check out the CBTi page. There are a number of tools on the right hand side which are helpful in evaluating where you are now, and what things might need to be changed. It takes some time to work through all the material at the site, but I certainly found it worthwhile. The guy is not selling anything. Besides being a pharmacist, he is a professor at the university, and I suspect gets grants and uses grad students to help develop the site. Here is the link:

SleepWell - CBTi

"Hi. Im new to the forum. Ive been reading about people with similar issues but not quite the same so i decided to ask for help here.

Ive been using cpap for about 4 months now. I was diagnosed with very severe sleep apnea so obviously been feeling great since i started this therapy.

Now, since last thursday, every time i put on the mask, boom, im not sleepy anymore. I would have it on for maybe 4 hours and nothing. I would take it off and then i could fall asleep in less than 15 minutes. I slept without the mask on thursday friday and saturday, and I obviously felt like shit the entire weekend, like sleepy and groggy all the time, like i used to before.

Anyway on sunday i read i shouldnt do that, so i was like well yeah makes sense, lets try to sleep with mask on or lets not sleep at all. The thing is, in a few hours its gonna be 48 hours since i last slept. I can be almost passing out from sleep yet when i put the mask on, boom, not no more.

Questions: am i going to be awake for the rest of my life? What might have caused this?

Important info: the mask feels comfortable and if i showed you my results youd see it was going great before this. I would like to avoid taking pills. Please dont tell me "for some people it takes years to feel comfortable using cpap", i believe this isnt just a "comfort" type of issue since i had been using it successfully for the past 4 months and nothing had changed. My doctor isnt exactly the most professional doctor there is, so even though ive tried telling him about this, he hasnt been of much help. I need yours.

Thanks in advance."