CPAP? What the crap?!

I have been recently diagnosed with sleep apnea on top of my numerous other ailments. At 44 I'm beginning to feel like I'm 94. Well that's not even true because if someone lives to be 94, they must be in some semblance of health, which I am most certainly not. Sucks... Anyway, back to the sleep apnea.

In my conversations with some friends, they have all told me, "Oh you'll just have to wear one of those breathing machines when you sleep. So-n-so had one and it's not that big of a deal" or "So-n-so had one and couldn't stand it so they won't wear it". The technicians and other people told me that it would help me to get a better night sleep and I would start to feel better because I was able to get that deep REM sleep without interruption. Riiiight. My wonderful friends and family basically laid it out for me: I would be ok with it or not. No one, not one person, prepared me for the trauma of really wearing one. Now mind you, I did wear one for about 3-4 hours during my sleep study but for some reason, that still did not prepare me for the reality of what they call "continuous positive airflow pressure", CPAP.


I went to my appointment to pick up my CPAP machine on Wednesday; today is Saturday. I was not prepared that day to hear the severity of my sleep apnea, nor did I truly understand the consequences of severe sleep apnea. In a nutshell, death. Color me freaked out! So Randy, the technician, explains the machine and what I'm suppose to do and how to take care of it. Off, I go. Freaked out but thankful that I now have my handy dandy little CPAP machine that is going to save me from dying in my sleep.

Night one. I go to turn off the lights to get in bed and realize I need the light on to get this wonderful, life-saving CPAP mask on. So, turn the light back on (which is by the door) get everything ready, turn the light off, go back to the bed, hit the light on the cell phone (guess it's time to get a bed-side lamp), put mask on and turn on machine. WHOOOSSSHHHH!!! Here we go. I was really, really tired so I don't think I had too much trouble, except when trying to turn over, but after about 4 hours I ripped the mask off my face and threw it on the floor and went back to sleep.


Night two. I was already having trouble breathing through my nose due to allergies when I put the mask on. I could still breath through my nose but felt like I couldn't take a deep breath. I needed to take a deep breath through my mouth. So, open my mouth to breath and WHOOOOSSSSSSHHHHH! All the positive air being force up my nose comes rushing out of my mouth! I can't breath in!!! For anyone who has seen "The Green Mile", if I would have had glitter in my mouth, that's what it would have looked like flying all over my bedroom!

I take the mask off my nose so that I can take a deep breath through my mouth. After doing this for about an hour, I finally drifted off to sleep only to continually wake myself up because I wasn't breathing. How do I know this? Well, when you have a mask that is forcing positive air pressure up your nose and you stop breathing, the positive air pressure you are suppose to be breathing builds up until you take that breath and then...whoosh up the nose. Over and over and over... Every few minutes I would doze off then wake up because of this whoosh up my nose! After about an hour of this continuous irritation, I took the mask off and threw it on the floor. Less then 3 hours with the mask this night.

Night three. Same as night two but I lasted a little longer. The difference last night was that I had to yawn several times. Do you know how hard it is to yawn when air is gushing out of your mouth? When I tired to close off my airway (getting a little trick in here)and yawn, the positive air pressure being forced up my nose plugs up my ears!!! So now I have to lift the mask off my face to yawn but then the airflow is blowing in my face. Good grief! After about 6 or 7 yawns, I finally fell asleep. Then on to doze...whoosh... doze...whoosh...

There is nothing on the internet to prepare you or give you little hints as to how to deal with these little breathing obstacles. After 3 nights of totally disrupted and irritated sleep and breathing, I'm beginning to think, "and this thing is suppose to help me sleep better and save my life?" What the heck? I'm just saying!