The CPAP Saga - Part I

If you have not been following the sleep study/CPAP stories, here's the recap:

• I convinced Barb that waking up tired every morning might be related to the poor sleep patterns I was observing. Bottom line is she had a sleep study and now uses a CPAP machine.
• A promise is a promise. She said, "Right back at ya" concerning my own poor sleep habits (read: snoring) so I agreed to the same test.
• My sleep study was a wretched experience, and when the doctor wanted me to repeat the test for the "titration" part, I told them the only way I would do that again was with  "a gun to my head." That statement is apparently now part of my permanent record. 
• Sleep Study notwithstanding, I now have my own CPAP machine.

All of this is because of several different medical conditions lumped under the name "sleep apnea" which might occur and cause one to wake repeatedly during the night; in my case about 46 times an hour. Not awake awake, but enough awake to get a lousy night's sleep, plus trigger other undesirable problems, like death. 

The most common cause of sleep apnea is soft tissue in the mouth and throat relaxing and closing the airway, shutting off the flow of oxygen until the brain gets uptight about it and wakes you up. Sort of. That's where the CPAP machine comes in - Constant Positive Airway Pressure. Basically it's a little air compressor. and to use it you put on a breathing mask of one type or another, hook a hose between the mask and the machine and turn it up to, oh, about 200 lbs psi and then try to get some sleep. 

With all that air being rammed down your throat. the soft tissue doesn't close, the brain gets all the rich, ripe oxygen it needs, and you wake up a happy camper. At least that's the theory. Did I mention the part about strapping a mask on your face? And that there is a hose in bed with you? And you don't want that sucker to slip around so there's some industrial-strength straps to hold it on. And if you have facial hair, like me, you use a mask that sticks little "pillows" up your nostrils and seals them off so all the air can be blown into your sinuses.

So doesn't this high-pressure air being injected up your nose want to come out of your mouth? Yes, and it sort of sounds like Darth Vader is in bed with you when it does. Since one wants to avoid this. one uses a chin strap to hold your mouth shut; then the air just sort of squirts out through your lips and makes pppppbbbbbtttt noises. Some resort to gluing their lips together (you can't make this up, folks), but that's not recommended. Duh!


So how is this working out thus far? I have a long way to go before I can say, "I love my CPAP machine" but the first night I used it, Barb had to poke me to see if I was still alive. Since I wasn't snoring, she figured I had put the mask on backwards and had suffocated. She loves it. 


I'll have more to say about this later.