Last night was my ninth night on CPAP therapy, and let me tell you: I think this machine is going to be life-changing for me. I have already noticed a difference in my energy levels after just a week and a half of using it, which feels surreal.
But let’s back up! I received my CPAP machine on Thursday, August 29th. It arrived in a cute little travel case, which contained the actual machine, the humidifier that attaches to it, the hose that delivers the air from the machine through my mask, and some other hookups. I already had a mask—the sleep center sent me home with the masks I used during my CPAP titration sleep study—and I’ve been using the one that fits over my nose. There is also an app that goes along with my machine. The app measures how many apneas I have every night, how long I had the mask on, my mask seal, and some other metrics. It totals all of those together to give me an overall score for the night. And, not to brag, but I’ve gotten an A grade every night—with quite a few 100% nights thrown in there! I’ve also integrated the app with my Apple Health data so it can show trends with how much exercise I’m getting, heart rate variability, resting heart rate, blood oxygen levels, etc. It’s very cool!
Okay, let’s get into some of the nitty-gritty aspects of using a CPAP machine. There have been some highs and lows this past week!
What’s Gone Well
- A lower apnea score
As I mentioned in a previous post, when I had my original sleep test, I experienced 47.4 apneas an hour. (One apnea = 10 seconds or more where I stop breathing before my brain wakes me up to force me to breathe again.) After eight nights of wearing the mask, my average is 2.2 apneas an hour! I’ve had a few nights where my apnea score was less than 1!
- Deeper sleep
I try to wear my Apple watch to bed a few times a week to track my sleeping patterns and blood oxygen levels. My sleep app tracks how much core, REM, and deep sleep I’m getting every night. Deep sleep is the most important sleep that we can get. We should be getting around 1.5-2 hours of deep sleep every night, as this is when our bodies repair muscles, bones, and tissue. It’s where our energy is replenished and also helps support immune system function. Before CPAP therapy, I was getting an average of 24 minutes of deep sleep every night. Now, things haven’t dramatically shifted when it comes to deep sleep (my average is still low: 30 minutes) but I am seeing gradual improvements. One night, I got over an hour of deep sleep! Hopefully, things will continue to trend upward and my body can finally start getting more than a few minutes of deep sleep every night.
- More energy (!!)
Of course, my energy level is the biggest improvement I’ve seen. I don’t have this bone-deep weariness anymore or feel that I can’t get through a day without taking a nap. One day last week, I woke up at 5:30am to go to a 6am HIIT class and typically, I would absolutely need a nap later on in the day. But that day, I didn’t even feel like I needed one! I was tired, of course, but a doable kind of tired. I feel more alert during the day and I am yawning so much less than I used to! Having more energy has had such a transformative effect on my mood, too. It’s hard being tired all the time!
- Improved symptoms
There are two other symptoms that have improved: brain fog and morning headaches. I used to wake up with a headache on a regular basis (I’d say at least once a week, maybe two or three times). Originally, I thought the headaches were due to grinding my teeth at night. But once I got my sleep apnea diagnosis, I learned that waking up with a headache is a common symptom. Since being on CPAP, I haven’t had a single headache in the morning. We’ll see if this trend continues, but so far, so good.
Another benefit I’ve noticed is less brain fog, which I didn’t even realize I was experiencing. I’ve been having a hard time focusing during the workday. I was really down on myself about it. I thought I just wasn’t disciplined enough. I needed to go back to an in-office job where I would be forced to sit at my desk for 8 hours and work. I thought I was lazy and unmotivated. But I don’t think that was it at all. Brain fog is a symptom of sleep apnea, and I think I’ve been experiencing it because I’ve had a few workdays last week where I was just on my game. I was motivated, I was focused, I was knocking off to-dos one after the other. I truly think I was just dealing with brain fog as a result of my disorder. That’s not to say I am always going to feel motivated and disciplined while at work, but the most likely culprit for the way I was feeling before being on CPAP was brain fog, not my own laziness.
What’s Been Challenging
- Using the mask
It has been challenging to get used to sleeping with a mask on my face. It’s just awkward, you know? I have had to figure out the right way to position my pillows so that I can sleep on my back or my side comfortably while still having a tight mask seal. I love to sleep on my stomach, too, but that’s no longer an option. (Which is good news for my sciatica, ha.) I’m learning how to sleep comfortably with my mask, but there have been some growing pains for sure.
- Skin irritation
Oh, the skin irritation. This has been frustrating. The way the bottom of the mask presses against the bottom of my nose and my philtrum hurts so much, and I wake up with those areas feeling so sore. I even had to take out my nose ring because the mask pushed on it, and it started to get irritated. (I couldn’t even touch the nose ring without my nose throbbing, which was NOT fun.) I bought a pack of covers for the mask that I hoped would help, but they just irritated my skin more. Finally, I called my sleep center and asked if I could try something else. I know that finding the right mask can be one of the most difficult parts of CPAP therapy, so I’m not special in this. While I wait for the new mask to arrive, I have been putting medical tape on the bottom of my nose and my philtrum, which has been helping a lot! Unfortunately, it gives me a bit of a Hitler-esque look, so that’s unfortunate.
Oh, and I’ve started waking up almost every day with whiteheads popping up on the inside of my nose or on my septum, as if I’m not dealing with enough! Argh.
- Falling asleep
It’s been hard to fall asleep with my mask on. I love falling asleep on my stomach and that’s not possible with a CPAP mask (or at least, I don’t have the right setup for it). I have to sleep on my side, but propped up in a specific way to make sure my mask remains tightly sealed to my face. The easiest way to position myself is on my back, so that’s generally how I’m falling asleep these days.
It’s also hard to get used to breathing through my nose and not my mouth! Since I have a nasal mask, the air is coming directly into my nose through my mask and I have to keep my mouth closed (it actually feels really weird to breathe through my mouth when I have the mask on, which makes it a lot easier to keep my mouth closed). Sometimes I feel as if I’m not getting enough air so that’s when I’ll push the mask up a bit so I can take a few deep breaths through my mouth. Once I’m settled down, I don’t have an issue with it and I think I will gradually get used to falling asleep this way. (Putting on an ASMR video on YouTube to help me fall asleep helps a lot!)
- Blood oxygen levels
My blood oxygen levels are still pretty low, averaging around 92%. One night, it averaged 88% with a record low recording of 80% at one point! So, things are still not great in that department, which is something I’ll talk about with my doctor during our next appointment (sometime later this month). When I had the CPAP titration study, the tech mentioned that my blood oxygen levels stayed low throughout the night and I might need additional therapies. So, we’ll see if these numbers keep trending low.
Ellie thought my CPAP machine travel case made a great little sleeping spot.
Moving Forward
So that’s how things are going! It’s only been a little over a week since I started CPAP therapy so some of these insights may feel a little premature, but I want to have this real-time view of how things are feeling and what I’m struggling with. I’ll probably do my next post about my progress at the three-month mark. By that point, I’ll hopefully have found a mask that works perfectly for me and have longer-term insights to share about symptom improvement. But I am so thrilled to be where I am after just a week of using my machine! It’s incredible to feel as if I finally have a regular amount of energy, and I’m really interested to see if this also improves some of the troubling bloodwork numbers I had earlier this year. (I’ll probably wait until the new year to get bloodwork done again, as I want to have been using CPAP for a bit longer to know if the benefits extend to my glucose/hypertension numbers.)
If you’ve made it to the end of this very long blog post, congrats! This is the sort of blog post I want to have for my own records so I can see where I was when I started CPAP therapy, but I hope it was somewhat interesting for other people. I have gotten so much support from you guys when I announced my disorder with so many people telling me how CPAP therapy has helped people in their lives so much. Right now, I’m feeling very hopeful that the same is going to be true for me because so far, the results have exceeded my expectations.
