Sleep Apnea

Just been diagnosed with Apnea, results were 121 Apneas over 8 hour period, basically 37 an hour.  Have been give Resmed 10 CPAP  used last night for first time.  Oh my difficult to go to sleep (already tired anyway) when I did was woken several times.  Air feels cold but something that really frightened me, I awoke and couldn't breathe, couldn't get mask off felt very panicky, has anyone else experienced this???  Any advice will be welcome........  Started the cut down to diet today, apparently this helps enormously.

It is common to have anxiety when using a CPAP for the first time. Make sure the CPAP you have is an automatic one, that adjusts pressure to your needs, if not get the ResMed A10 auto for women, it has more than one setting and I find that the setting for women is much more tolerable for me and I am a man. Next go to sleepy head on the web and down load the free software, this will help you make sure that your settings are right for you and it will track your progress. There is a blog for SA sufferers that can help you better than here. Apnea board. Check it out. Hang in there it does get better, also maybe try a nasal mask instead of a full face mask, it is what I use. My biggest problem when I first started was taking the mask off in the middle of the night. I would wake up with it on the floor.

Hi Gaynor, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnoea in May this year and like yourself I use a cpap restmed. I was having 84 apnoea's an hour. Not the nicest thing to get used to but trust me it will come good. I took about 6 weeks to get used to the machine and wearing the mask. As for the cold air, ask for a humidifier that attaches to the machine. I found it's really beneficial as it gently heats the water when you switch your machine on. I have had no apneoa's since using the machine and sleep on average 6-8 hours a night. Please persevere with the cpap machine, it's horrible to start with, but I promise you it will come good. All the very best, and if your like me you'll get your life back and feel 'normal' again, which I can tell you feels amazing. Take care x