Posted by sandman on October 19, 2011 at 10:52:42:I have snored for all of my adult life and underwent a sleep study about five years ago. At the time, no apnea was found and they did not attempt to place me on the CPAP machine during that study.
After years of continuing to snore, I decided I needed to revisit the issue to save my wife from having to hear me every night. Last night I had another sleep study. This was also a "split night" study.
It took me a while to get to sleep just because of all the junk hooked up to me, but I slept relatively well. I kind of woke up on my own at one point and thought I had made it through the night without having to use the mask again. Unfortunately, a couple of minutes later the technician came in and said she needed to put the mask on me.
I felt anxiety building. I was already disappointed that there were obviously signs of apnea, prompting them to use the mask. The first mask she tried covered the nose only. It had a new plastic smell which was not pleasant. She got the mask fitted on me and I laid back down, but just couldn't get comfortable with the mask. I could feel the anxiety building inside of me and I felt like I was smothering. To make matter worse, having the brace for the mask wrapped around my head made me feel even more claustrophobic. I pulled the mask off my head in almost a panic as I just felt that I couldn't take it.
The technician then wanted to try a mask that covered both the mouth and nose. I sat there for a minute trying to get used to it, but again, freaked out and couldn't handle it.
She said that we would just continue with the normal study and deal with the mask at a later date.
This caused me a great deal of anxiety and made me feel really bad. I am very down about the whole process and what lies ahead.
I won't know my numbers from the test for a week or so, but it really bothers me to know that I very likely have apnea that will require CPAP, but I can't deal with the mask being wrapped around my face and with the air flow.
I am simply at a loss. I am very discouraged. I am still a relatively young guy and want to have a good, long, healthy life. I want to ensure that the apnea gets addressed, but have some serious fear about how I am going to deal with the CPAP machine and masks.
Can anyone offer me any words of advice or encouragement? Not a good day for me.
- Re: Rough Sleep Study, Need Advice BC 08:05 10/20/11 (0)