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markandjen
+0 points
·
over 4 years
ago
Original Poster
My husband was diagnosed with sleep apnea about two weeks ago. The doctor said he stopped sleeping 25 times per hour during the home sleep study which is apparently a lower number than what actually happens. He's had a CPAP machine for two weeks now. His numbers are coming back showing the machine is working. He is really struggling with exhaustion though. He can't make it through a work day. We went to the grocery store quickly and I had to pull up the car because he couldn't walk to the parking lot. How long does it take before feeling the results of the CPAP? I'm concerned there might be something else wrong with him. All of his blood work is coming back normal and he's had his heart checked too. He's even been checked for a blood clot in his lungs. I'm not sure if I should keep pushing for docs to find what is causing the exhaustion or give this CPAP more time to kick in. His actions aren't that of a 53 year old male.
I am not a medical professional, and could not guess what else could be going on. With CPAP some people seem to get a benefit fairly fast, while in others it takes some time. One issue is that a CPAP will always disturb sleep until one gets used to wearing it. So you have the CPAP reducing the number of apnea events, but at the same time the mask, hose, and pressure disturbing sleep. That will take some time.
It sounds like he was diagnosed with an AHI of 25, which is Moderate apnea. Do you know what it is now? The objective is to get it to less than 5, but it is not uncommon to get below 1.
Depending on the type of apnea he is suffering from, that may be as good as it gets. Central apnea (clear airway, CA) events are not really reduced effectively by a CPAP, and are more difficult to control. But under 5 is considered OK. If it is all obstructive apnea (OA) then getting down to a consistent 1 may be possible. There is a free program for a PC or Mac called OSCAR that does a very good job of displaying all the detailed data. It requires a SD card reader. All but the very basic CPAP machines from Phillips and ResMed capture the detailed data. Viewing the detailed data can be very helpful in determining is improvements can be made to the machine setup. If you need help with this, just ask.
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