My adventures with the CPAP/APAP

Things are going much better since I was switched to the APAP machine.  I think rep guy might be onto something.

The heated tube makes a tremendous differerence to my comfort level (and this unit IS actually much quieter than the other).

I love the fact that I can check each morning to see how I've progressed too.

For instance, the respirologist told me that I had been averaging 10 apnea events per hour and he wanted to get that number down to below five.

In the first five nights of using the new machine, my AHIs (apneas/hypopneas index) have been:  9.9; 3.4; 3.9; 9.0; and 3.7 respectively.  So, we would certainly appear to be on the right track.  I'm not sure why the bump back up to 9.0 on that fourth night, but let's assume an anomaly for now.  Time will tell.

It will be interesting to find out how long my breathing has been stopped during these apneas too, because I've had a couple of quite frightening experiences that I'm anxious to discuss both with the respirologist and the sleep specialist.

Last Thursday night (well, Friday morning) at about 1:30am, I woke in serious distress.

I was struggling to get air.

Dying, to be sure.

When I finally reached consciousness, I became aware of the dry mouth (damned, cursed dry mouth again!) and managed to get my mouth open, lick my lips a few times to get the saliva going, and take a few gulps of air.  Then I lay there and let the machine do its work, pumping air into me (and I was drinking it in for all it was worth!).

It took several minutes -- what felt like forever -- to get my lungs feeling comfortable.  It was like they had seized.

Of course, my heart was racing because I was really quite alarmed by the experience.

I thought the machine was supposed to prevent those occurrences?

The same thing happened on Friday night (Saturday morning), at around the same time too.  It just wasn't as dramatic.  And the next morning, my AHI was up to 9.0 -- obviously, I'd had a difficult night.

Last night was passed without incident, thankfully.

The common denominator, of course, is that both times when these events occurred, I was sleeping on my back.  Last night, I remained on my side most of the night.

Now, I know that historically, I only had issues if I slept on my back.  The sleep specialist's original recommendation was that I would be OK if I could "learn to sleep non-supine." 

But my point is -- I NEED to sleep supine a lot of the time.  (That's what started this whole thing, remember?)  That need will increase as my hips worsen (especially when I have the surgery and through the recovery period).

As I understand it, CPAP/APAP therapy prevents breathing cessation regardless of sleeping position.

Perhaps I'm expecting too much, too soon, of this APAP therapy.  I don't know.