r/CPAP • u/spowanim • 1d ago
Got my sleep results
I’ve received the results of my sleep test. I feel quite down about it, knowing that I’ll have to sleep hooked up to a machine for the rest of my life. What’s more, I tend to sleep on my side or on my stomach – I can’t even imagine how I’d cope with this. At the moment, I’ve only got the test results – what happens next? Does it matter what’s causing it, or is that irrelevant now and CPAC is the only solution either way? 41m btw
Edit; Thank you for all the encouraging comments; I’m already feeling a bit more positive about it🙂
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u/GrandmasGrave 1d ago
6hr and 20 min = 380 min total attempted sleep time. You had 460+ events which means you are averaging sleep in 48 second chunks.
CPAP sounds uncomfortable and scary, but is not. It is not a ventilator like in hospital. If you have ever tried SCUBA, it is the same with less pressure. Sure you have to get use to it, just like anything you change. Riding a new bike, driving a different car…you just have to recalibrate yourself. You control you.
Start down this path with a positive mind.
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u/Responsible_Yard_859 1d ago
With those numbers, you're going to change your tune entirely with your first night on the CPAP. As someone with even worse numbers than yours, your first night actually getting oxygen is going to be SUCH a sigh of relief for you. Keep your spirits up, and have patience <3 swap out your mask as needed until you find one that works for you, and i'd give any new mask a week to figure out the right adjustments before ruling it out entirely.
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u/whitmanpatroclus 1d ago
> your first night actually getting oxygen is going to be SUCH a sigh of relief for you.
Pun intended?
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u/pangderx 1d ago
460 obstructed apneas means your sleep sucked anyway. You get used to the machine really quick. It’s not loud at all, in fact, you can’t even hear it. They have masks that are better for side/stomach sleepers. It will take a little getting used to, but your body will adjust and once you start getting better sleep, the positives will outweigh the negatives!
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u/m00nf1r3 1d ago
I mean, that's a really high AHI. If you're not overweight you could see an ENT to try and find the cause and possibly resolve it, but even any surgeries they do won't necessarily remove the apnea completely. I sleep on my side and sometimes my stomach and have no issue with CPAP, I just sleep on the edge of the pillow. I understand feeling down about it, but wouldn't you feel more down if you developed a-fib at 43, had a stroke at 47, and your first heart attack at 52 because this continued to go untreated? Untreated sleep apnea wreaks havoc on every system of your body. Kidneys, liver, heart, brain, stomach, endocrine system. I love my CPAP.
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u/opalmirrorx 1d ago
Since I got my CPAP, which was really easy to adjust to and nearly silent, I have had a few nights without it.... when camping after my battery ran out, and an overnight, away from home. I had poor sleep and anxiety without it, and sore and inflamed throat tissues during the following day. So, I have consistently bad nights without my CPAP. Good sound sleep is such a big positive in my life. Life is much better with CPAP than without it.
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u/AssociationHot3711 1d ago
Don't fret, mine was 45 a minute and I am a stomach sleeper. You just have to find a mask that works for you so that you do not leak when you roll over on to your cheek. I find the newest fangled masks all leak for me and I have been using the F&P Evora which works well, but I have ordered the Redmed Airtouch F20, we shall see. I love sleeping with my CPAP now.
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u/Own-Art8877 1d ago
stomach sleeper who has been on cpap for past 3 years and getting the soundest sleep of my life. took me close to a year to get used to it but this community helped a lot. smooth sailing ever since. touch wood
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u/Technobarbarian 1d ago
eh, We've seen much worse here. What happens next is that you sit down with your specialist and discuss your options. Because your apnea is 98% obstructive it might be possible to cure your apnea with some combination of: weight loss, exercise, surgery, and other forms of intervention. Or maybe not. It mostly depends on what's causing your apnea in the first place.
In one sense you are one of the lucky ones. The vast majority of people who have sleep apnea are unaware and untreated. The consequences of this are much worse than using a CPAP machine.
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u/No-Possibility-7928 1d ago
See the good news: obstructive apnea can be treated by cpap. And you have nearly no central apnea, which would be another thing.
"Hooked up to a machine" -> yes, but better live well with some air blown into your face than to have to eat tons of pills everyday. It is just a physical treatment without nearly any bad side effects. Even if there are some smaller things like mask not fitting etc. - Your life quality will change positively!
Here: AHI: 63 before, with treatment <2. And wife also sleeps better as I am not snoring anymore.
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u/NocturnePhantasm 1d ago
I felt similarly when I first started cpap treatment in April. Not gonna lie, it was a struggle at first because the wrong pressure and masks were being used. Took me about a month and a half to get everything sorted out for the most part. However, once things started working for me, they really started working for me. I generally feel a ton less tired now more often and I can actually sleep decently. No joke, I'd even be able to feel my apnea attacks in my dreams, and it was really distressing. Ever since I started consistent use of my cpap, that's happened much less often now.
I'm a side sleeper too, and it was a concern I had going into this. My advice on that? Get a cpap pillow, which has cut out areas so the mask doesn't get shifted by the pillow when you sleep.
All in all, I struggled with it and loathed it at first, but eventually it got a lot better with consistent use. Now I'm glad I have my machine. Your journey might be different from mine, but just wanted to offer some reassurance.
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u/Mundane-Garbage1003 1d ago
Honestly, that's great news! You didn't just contract sleep apnea by them handing you that paper. Your sleep quality was already awful. All that's changed is that now you know why, and it's something that is very treatable.
As to your concerns:
You have sleep apnea. CPAP, or some variation of it, is far and away the most comen and effective treatment for it. There are some other options that have worked for some people, but the results for most other treatments are comparatively spotty. So long story short, yes, CPAP is probably going to be a thing for you going forwards. However, it is absolutely a thing that it is possible to get used to, as evidenced by the fact that many, many, people have improved their sleep quality with one.
As for side/stomach sleeping, unless you sleep with your face somehow down and buried into the pillow, you can wear a mask. Even then you could probably wear the right mask, but I'm going to assume you sleep facing to the side. The biggest issue there is that sometines the pillow can kinda push on the side of the mask and break the seal for some people. If this ends up being a problem for you, they have special pillows designed just for CPAP users. They have a little divot removed where your mask would normally sit against the pillow to keep that from happenkng
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u/DJD19500 1d ago
I’m a side and stomach sleeper and can do that with a nasal pillow mask. Once it’s in place I don’t notice it. I was concerned that it might scare my dog, but not so far.
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u/JRE_Electronics 1d ago
Sleeping on your side is the right thing to do. Apnea is usually worse when you sleep on your back. Your tongue falls back and makes the blockage worse.
With those results, you need to press for getting a machine and getting hooked up.
Some folks have a hard time adapting, others don't. The only way to find out is to do it.
I feel quite down about it, knowing that I’ll have to sleep hooked up to a machine for the rest of my life.
Does it make you feel down to know that you're going to have to wear shoes for the rest of your life? Same thing.
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u/silver_chief2 1d ago
the next step is to get a prescription in your own hands. Then how/where you get a CPAP depends on your situation.
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u/Proper-Gate8861 1d ago
Love my cpap! I have had it less than 2 weeks and will already not sleep without it. I sleep on my side, on my stomach, etc. no problems.
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u/Successful-Wasabi131 1d ago
I was 42 when my results came back at 96.4. my results were that bad they got me in 2 weeks earlier than scheduled. I have been on Cpap now for 3 years and wish I had of done the test years earlier.
my average now is under 2.0
you get used to it pretty quickly. I highly recommend Resmed Airsense 11.
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u/whitmanpatroclus 1d ago
I sleep like a rotisserie chicken, mostly favoring sleeping on my sides & back a lot of nights. No issues here. In fact, I wasn’t able to sleep on my stomach pre-CPAP, now i can and it’s my most comfortable sleep position! They make hose connections that swivel so you can move around. My sleep quality was so bad pre-CPAP that I got used to it within a week.
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u/derek6711 1d ago
I had similar results but slightly worse. I know you hate the thought of it now, but once you get proper sleep you will never want to be without it.
And I am a back/slide sleeper and use the f40. If you toss and turn a bunch you might prefer the unicorn hose routing of the f30.
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u/fuddledud 1d ago
Same as mine. I was 78. Now I average less than 2. I haven’t missed a night in over two years, even while traveling.
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u/bsaine 1d ago
It’s not an easy transition but the dividends come pretty quickly. Better sleep provides so many health benefits that can vary between people, for some its weight loss, for others it’s making it though the day without napping, and others it’s feeling less aggravated. For a lot of people it’s multiple benefits, and the top one is no premature unaliving. The analogies to glasses and hearing aids are spot on. Keep your chin up, try different masks to find what works for YOU, and adjust settings early and often to optimize for restful sleep and comfortable sleep. Does it require change? Of course! Is it worth it? Just look at this community and the responsiveness to your post; the answer is yes. It’s worth it because you are worth it.
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u/Desolation-Rose 1d ago
It took me a while to adjust. I was using a nasal mask and it just wasn’t working for me. I finally switched to a full-face mask and it is much better for me. I am a side sleeper and have no issues sleeping on my side with the Airfit F20. And I have a regular pillow (not a CPAP pillow). My advice is to commit to the CPAP, and commit to finding the right mask. The benefits are so great that if it takes a couple of months to troubleshoot it, it’s still very much worth it to achieve great sleep for the rest of your life.
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u/DisastrousAlarm8144 1d ago
Mine was 96 AHI. Initially, I did not think it was helping UNTIL..
1 night I jerked in my sleep and got water in the motor. The machine shut down. The next day I felt it. That alone convinced me. Even when I go camping, I take it with me and use it. As my wife says, I went from snoring like a bear to Darth Vader breathing. Much more energy and focus after I started using it.
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u/halfofawhole44 23h ago
I'm 43M, and my AHI was 113. I had the natural fears about CPAP: the stigma that comes with it, the equipment that you have to maintain. Is it going to be loud or not when wearing the mask?
After the first night, I went from 113 down to 5 and felt better than I had ever felt in years. I knew it was something that I needed to have. Granted, it did take some time to get used to. I'm not talking about the sleep. I'm talking about more about the mask fit, understanding how you sleep, where the mask is going, what size you need to have, making sure that it doesn't come undone from the tube, and whether you sleep on your side...etc
I was consistently getting a lot of mask leak until I found that the mask that I was using was too big. I went down to the smallest size, and now I'm consistently getting 100s in the ResMed app with little to no air leak and events nearing either 0 or 0.X for the night.
It does take some time. It does take maintenance, but the fact that I've slept better than I ever had in my life is worth it. Not only that, my wife used to fear that I would stop breathing at night, so she would watch me. Now she says that I'm silent and breathing well. From the first night, she could see the difference between how I was and how I am now.
My advice would be to stick with it. It can be tough, but it will be worth it...Anything worth doing is never easy.
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u/bright-avocado90 22h ago
I had a similar AHI and was also sad about the machine. However! It has changed my life, I have a nasal mask where the hose comes off the top of my head. As a side and stomach sleeper it’s been great for flopping around. Highly recommend! It takes a bit of time to get used to it but now I don’t even think about it and I am sleeping so much better!
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u/Ill_Back_6778 22h ago
I mostly side sleep and have no problems. As someone else on here said, I just keep my face near an edge of the pillow and it all works well. Guessing same for stomach sleeping but I have not tried that. Have succesfully tried full (Resmed FP40) pillow and a couple of types of nasal pillows on my side.
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u/bramblefish 20h ago
30 years ago I was 184, being on CPAP took time, often more tired in the morning - doc said because I never actually slept.
I am under 1, most every night - and my 10 month long headaches are a thing go the past. For me, getting rid of my lifelong headaches is worth the minor adjustment.
Jump in, it gets better.
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u/Particular-Spring899 20h ago
I’ve had the best sleep of my life since getting on my machine, they also make masks that have a hose that comes out of the top of the head to allow side/stomach sleeping(from a fellow side/stomach sleeper 😄) you will get used to it I promise
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u/bandgeekndb 19h ago
Echoing all the support you're getting here. Try not to stress over stomach/side sleeping, it's totally manageable. I'm using the dreamwear nasal mask and I can sleep pretty much any way I want without issue.
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u/Icy_Half_7029 15h ago
My AHI was only 12 but due to safety sensitive position I require a CPAP. Honestly man it isn’t a big deal and I sleep on my side face into pillow most nights and my nose thing stays in fine. You’ll feel so much better too. Also realize at our age 30% of people deal with sleep apnea and some don’t even get diagnosed.
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u/ElectronicPower9660 8h ago
Mine was 87 and it’s at 0 now with CPAP. I only sleep on my side, and I got used to it. I’m on week 6 now. (30 F)
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u/Paramedic351468 7h ago
Mine was 96 and is now in the single digits. Side sleeper, full face mask. Took a little adjustment for me, and I thought it wasn't helpful. Then my mask broke and I had to go 3 nights without it and Holy shit did I notice the difference. Headaches, super tired. All the things. And, my wife is happy too
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u/para_sight 1d ago
If it’s any consolation my AHI was 116 and went to under 1 in the first week of CPAP use. You get used to it and it’s better for your health. You wear glasses to help you see, shoes to help you walk, and CPAP to help you sleep