I have had this cpap for 2 mo.. It works in the sense that I don't snore ( as per my wife) I find the Mask dificult and I rarely get thru the night without ripping it off because I can'tg stand the pressure on my face or my nose closes up.
After using Afrin to open my nose at night I now have alergies w/running nose so bad I can't go out side with out a dust mask. I NEVER had Alergies before.
HAs any one else had this problem?

Regards
Dave

Anyone been diagnosed with apnea but later found out it was just alergies? I have no daytime symptoms of apnea, just snoring at night. I have gone up to 200 lbs from 175 in two years (1 inch neck size). They are telling me I have sleep apnea . . but noone is addressing the congestion I have at night. Anyone want to comment?

My sleep doctor called me "a poster boy for apnea." I've still got the printout around here somewhere and it's clear that I was getting only minutes of sleep a night.

I am one of the 20 percent who can't use CPAP -- I actually got less sleep with the machine than I did with the straight apnea. The air pressure, the sound, the straps (I even tried the nose-plug thing); it all just kept me awake.

My personal solution was to learn to sleep on my side -- the person in the bed with me says that while I still snore, she no longer hears my breathing stop (which is what got me to the sleep doctor in the first place).

A friend who was on CPAP for about five years recently switched over to an oral applicance (aka mouthpiece) which was custom-made by a dentist for her. She says that it works just as well as the CPAP and that her husband now sleeps because the CPAP machine -- while relatively silent -- still bothered him.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/68/A0366800.html says that "apnea" is from New Latin (which, in turn, go tit from Greek) and means "without breathing (from pnein, to breathe...)"

Thanks, Tom! I'm using some nasal spray, but I bought a unit with a humidifier built in. Since I'm paying out of pocket, the equipment guy connected with the sleep clinic got me a sweet deal on a top-of-the-line unit for 1/3rd the new unit's cost. It has about 45 days of use on it, so it's practically new, and has 18 months or so left on its warranty. I'm using the Ultra Mirage mask.

The humidifer seems to help, but not sure! Need to mess with various settings. I think my nose problem stems from the mask that I used at the sleep clinic. I broke out in whiteheads along the bridge of my nose the day after the study, and Lynn suspects they didn't properly clean the mask I used there. So now I'm exacerbating the healing of the whiteheads which have turned into scabs. Yuck.

Yeah, the six-hour sleep thing: I'm sleeping about 7 to 8 hours with one or two wakings per night, and feeling really amazing in the morning.

The first day after sleeping with a CPAP, I came in, wrote several thousand words, conducting some phone interviews, made some corrections to existing articles, and was generally unbelievably productive.

Glenn, if your nose is raw, that may be a sign that you need to adjust the mask a bit, or even switch masks to a different model. If you're still hurting after a week, and fiddling with the mask's straps doesn't help, talk to your RT again. I've also had a bit of problems with nasal dryness from the constant airflow, but I looked into a humidifier, and it's a huge PITA, so before I put the mask on, I do two or three snorts (ah, that old druggie terminology comes back into play) of over-the-counter saline nasal spray. Not the decongesting kind, I hasten to add; just saline. It seems to help. If I wake up a bit early and feel dry, I shut the machine off, slip the mask aside, take a spray or two, readjust things, and go back to sleep.

Speaking of which, when things are adjusted right, I now only need 6 hours to feel perfectly rested and alert. Before the machine, 8 to 10, and I still felt dopey most of the day. I got a new machine in June, and it worked fine until last week, when it started acting up. Got a loaner today, but the past several days have really pointed up for me the difference this therapy makes; I've felt awful, and my productivity has plummeted. I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep and getting back to work.

Hey, Tom, my sleep RN said I'd find lots of friends who were already on a CPAP/Bi-PAP, and lookee there! I'm still in the adjustment phase, but I'm having no difficulty sleeping with the mask -- 8 hours of good solid sleep is hard to argue with.

And, I agree about Rick: Rick, the stuff you're describing is all about the nose and sinuses, which have little to do with apnea -- they're only symptoms. Surgery was highly deprecated by everyone I talked to: only 30 to 50 percent successful, only a temporary fix for many people, and expensive and very very painful with a long recovery period. Also, irreversible.

The CPAP (or Bi-PAP) works for practically everyone. It's just a hassle, but a pretty minor one compared to the benefit.

The bridge of my nose is a little raw from the first week, but the mask itself is comfortable, and the combination of white noise and rhythmic breathing puts me to sleep faster than I've ever been able to nod off in my life!

The picture linked in the comments is the mask that I use; I like the way that the tube goes up over my forehead. It's actually been deprecated in favor of a newer model, the Ultra Mirage, that I don't like as much (I don't think it's as comfortable), but that breaks less.

I've been on BiPAP (different pressures on inhale and exhale) for about two years now. It's made a big difference to me, because I don't need to take a nap in the afternoons now and I don't feel tired all the time. The living longer will be a nice side effect, too. It's a bit of a pain to have to travel with the machine, but you get used to it. My apnea is pretty nasty; my doctor said that at times during the night, my blood oxygen level dropped to "just above that of broccoli."

If I were Rick, I'd do some more research and consider changing doctors; CPAP is almost always the treatment of choice over surgery. Before my sleep study, I tried the sprays and the nose strips, and they just don't really do the job.

Long Term Review: Just as a general comment, my father suffered from sleep apnea for years and years and has been living with the device you describe for a few years now -- and has never been better.

That picture is of the Mirage mask, which is actually one of the nicer, less obtrusive masks out there. You should have seen the WWII Gas Mask I had for my sleep study...

Glenn, my condolences. I too was diagnosed w/ apnea, tho just barely, only enough, according to my doctor, that we could get my health insurance to pay for surgery to quiet my snoring (which would otherwise be deemed "cosmetic"; tell that to my wife). So far I've decided against and have made due w/ alergy medicines, nasal sprays and those strips they sell in the drug store to flair your nostrils. That and sleeping on the couch from time to time. Not to make light of your condition, but to really put the agnony of apnea in context for your readers, you have to show a pic of the CPAP masks: http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/98-99/INDUSTRIAL%20DESIGN/042/large-3.jpg

Best, R-

Welcome to the group. I'm at 11cm, myself. 99 apnea events per hour. (Every 36 seconds, fer chrissake.)

Rather like sleeping in a wind tunnel, isn't it? I find that after three years, I don't even notice the air pressure anymore.