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Re: any tips on side effects of pap?

Posted by ecodreamer on October 16, 2003 at 18:50:01:

In Reply to: any tips on side effects of pap? posted by freebird on October 16, 2003 at 15:13:47:

Thats a rough place to be.
It sounds to me that it is important to address thee issues related to breathing and fear of loss of control over it, and you mentioned an experience of near drowning, so there would certainly be a basis for that fear.
I've had to extensively explore my issues with cpap and apnea. I found the work in some forms of neuro linguistic programming (specifically reimprinting as developed by Robert Dilts) very helpful and also the work of Stanislav Grof with Holotropic Bfreathwork. You don't say where you are so I am asuming somewhere in the U.S. The other helpful thing for me has been Vipassana meditation, which is a breath based insight meditation technique. I realize none of these is mainstream, but each of them helped me tremendously. The other very helpful thing when I had insomnia (no longer do) was to quit coffee and sleep under a skylight.At that time I took ambien every night for three months.I turned of the light early in the evening and lived with very soft candlelight, because my melatonin production was out of sync. For me I discovered the mask triggered strong fear/panic associated with a difficult childbirth when I was administered gas via a mask. From my perspective, for sure if you are sleep deprived, medication short term is helpful. That has to be addressed as do the emotional issues impeding your use of the machine to prevent apneas. Many of us have been there and come through this anxiety phase. I can only trell you that I did, I use my machine daily (wouldn't sleep without it) and encourage you to find the options that support you best. We're all different and what worked for me may not work for you. I offered my experience, because its sometimes easy to believe we are the only struggling panicky sleep apnea suffereer and that is not so, there are lots of us and some of us had to really work at it to get to a point where we sleep and sleep well, with our machines.I do really feel for you and encourage you to vigorously pursue assistance.

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