Posted by AmyM on September 25, 2001 at 14:52:13:

In Reply to: New to this posted by GETTINGSOMESLEEPINSEATTLE on September 25, 2001 at 14:25:40:

Welcome to the sleepnet forum! I have found this forum is full of terrific people who have been a great support to me and others and who have helped to make our cpap experiences a success.

First of all, congratulations to you for making such a great commitment to using cpap. I can tell you're really motivated and YOU WILL SUCCEED! You have a winning attitude.

Second, I wanted to encourage you on the weight loss without the gastric bypass surgery being necessary. When I started using cpap I weighed 268 pounds. After using cpap and by signing up with Weight Watchers, I lost 115 pounds. This reduced my apnea (which had been very severe)to a much more manageable range. Since you are a lot younger than I am, you may succeed in getting rid of your apnea altogether.

For weight loss, I really recommend identifying a program you can live with, because you will probably need to follow it the rest of your life. Having apnea makes it more likely that we will have a weight problem and makes it very important that we manage our weight as well as we can. I like the Weight Watchers program because there are no forbidden foods, the points system is easy to count, you can eat whatever you want (as long as you stay within points), and there is accountability and support in the weekly meetings. However, there are plenty of great programs out there, and I encourage you to shop around for a good one.

To address your cpap concerns: we all found that you have to tweak things (especially at the beginning) until you have the system that works best for you.

The water problem you describe is called "rain-out" and has to do with condensation accumulating in your tubes (because the heated humidifier warms the inside of the tubes while the ambient room temp is dropping). You can get a sleeve that goes around the hose that will stop that problem. (you can also try lowering the humidifier setting--I find that until the heat goes on, I can use a much lower setting).

You haven't mentioned what cpap you have, what your pressure setting is and what kind of mask you have right now. There are lots of great masks out there (I('ve seen huge improvements since I first started on cpap in 1998) including nasal pillows (which won't rub your skin the wrong way). There are other things you can do to reduce tug on your mask (like get a swinging arm that holds the hoses up over your bed); or trying custom headgear.

You mentioned mouth breathing. It is hard to be sure you're not in fact breathing through your mouth at night. The best thing to do is to either try a chin strap or a full face mask.

You mention feeling as if you had a cold. You probably need your doctor to prescribe a steroid nasal spray (flonase or nasonex) and possibly decongestants or antihistamines to help. Cpap can cause some irritation to the airways and many of us need to use something to help with that.

On this forum you'll find fellow hoseheads who use every variety and combination of equipment and we're all here to share what we've learned and experienced. So please keep us all posted and let us know how it's going!

Follow Ups:

• Re: New to this gettingsomesleepinseattle 20:20 9/26/01 (1)
  • Re: New to this AmyM 09:41 9/28/01 (0)

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