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Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
#21
RE: Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
I fell asleep in the movie theater, and each time I fell asleep I loudly choked and woke up. That was embarrassing, and annoying.

One night, a couple years after being on CPAP every single night, I totally forgot to mask-up. I woke up in the middle of the night with a giant headache and feeling really lousy.
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#22
RE: Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
Some weeks ago I had a minor issue with my CPAP, I had a coughing fit, the pressure increased to maximum, and it was keeping me from falling asleep, so I tried it. I had also lost a fair amount of weight and was about as lean as I was when graduating high school, so I thought it was worth a try.

It was a bad decision, I woke up about every fifteen minutes all night long, and felt like a wreck the next morning, won’t be doing that again.
Geoffrey Rush as Philip Henslowe, (Shakespeare in Love) "I don't know. It's a mystery."
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#23
RE: Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
I don't sleep or even lie down to rest without my machine ever as I was diagnosed 12 years ago at an AHI of 87.  My diagnosis is obstructive sleep apnea. I have a backup battery I've occasionally had to use with power outages. and I have a backup machine. I felt terrible for years before my diagnosis and the first night in the sleep lab, they woke me, telling me I needed to put a mask immediately because my numbers were so high. The next morning, I felt better than I had in years. Even though I struggled finding the right mask at first (and I'm in the middle of getting a new mask so my current model no longer works for me), I don't  plan on ever going back to not using my cpap. I don't ever want to feel that way ever again, as I would occasionally wake up gasping for air, have a headache and feel very tired all the time. As well, I worry about dying early (or having a stroke or heart attack) if I don't use it. 


I even take it with me for medical proceedures. I'm very high risk for colon cancer. I took my machine to my colon surgery several years ago. They put it on me in recovery. When I have a colonscopy (I get them more frequently than average, every 2 yrs), I take it along with the provision that if they want me asleep, I have to put it on (usually they only give me enough sedative to remove discomfort & I'm awake during the proceedure but my cpap is with me in case circumstances change.) Most medical professionals are understanding & thank me for bringing it along. (The exception was one anesthesiologist who asked if it was "really necessary" at my surgery prescreening. I told yes, my ahi was 87 & she of all people should understand the importance of keeping the airway open. I came to the conclusion she was a jerk as she complained bitterly about my smaller than average throat size right after I told her my throat was very small. Fortunately she wasn't the anesthesiologist at my surgery.
Airsense 10, Vitera face mask, Foam Cervical Collar, Silent Nights mask liners 
Canadian, diagnosed OSA in 2008 with 87 AHI pressure 16-20
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#24
RE: Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
I have a low AHI but high ODI. I sometimes nap without ASV. I typically wake up after 90 minutes feeling like being knocked out. Head hurts, foggy, slow. Terrible. Sometimes it is not as bad. For the most recent sleep study I had to sleep without it. Was very afraid but it was not so bad. Dit take me until midday to clear the fog. At altitude (6000FT/2000m) I forgot to put it back on halfway through the night and woke up feeling I had a heart attack. So very mixed experience. I would recommend an oximeter with alarm to wake you up in case of very low desaturations.
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#25
RE: Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
I’ve only been using a machine for about 18 months. When I don’t use my CPAP, terrible things happen. Headaches, joint pain, mysterious aches, and a fogginess that lasts for hours after waking. An insane amount of discomfort bordering on tangible harm. My biggest problem is waking up for a bathroom break and being too groggy to refit the mask, next is being a lazy hit who thinks I can just drift off again after removing the mask. I am so wrong and I’m trying to habit-form full compliance. 55+ years of sleeping however I wish, whenever I want has been a massive hurdle to overcome. The difference between 3+ hours of CPAP sleep and 7+ hours without is night & day.
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#26
RE: Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
It all depends on severity of apnea. Those with moderate/severe apnea have instant effects. Those with minor apnea or UARS have much less obvious effects with symptoms such as tiredness creeping in after days of no use rather than minutes/hours.

I am an example of the latter. I use PAP almost every night but I can sleep without it with only minimal effects.
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#27
RE: Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
(05-22-2021, 11:39 AM)Geer1 Wrote: It all depends on severity of apnea. Those with moderate/severe apnea have instant effects. Those with minor apnea or UARS have much less obvious effects with symptoms such as tiredness creeping in after days of no use rather than minutes/hours.

I have to vehemently disagree. 

My OSA is "so mild it's not even worth treating" (according to my doctor).  And I have instantaneous and severe negative symptoms from even just an hour of sleep without my CPAP.

I don't know what the reason is, for each of us experiencing things differently. But I don't think the mild/severe argument is the reason.
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#28
RE: Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
(05-22-2021, 12:06 PM)Hydrangea Wrote:
(05-22-2021, 11:39 AM)Geer1 Wrote: It all depends on severity of apnea. Those with moderate/severe apnea have instant effects. Those with minor apnea or UARS have much less obvious effects with symptoms such as tiredness creeping in after days of no use rather than minutes/hours.

I have to vehemently disagree. 

My OSA is "so mild it's not even worth treating" (according to my doctor).  And I have instantaneous and severe negative symptoms from even just an hour of sleep without my CPAP.

I don't know what the reason is, for each of us experiencing things differently. But I don't think the mild/severe argument is the reason.

I think you're probably right, especially as not everyone with sleep apnea has overt symptoms. At least over here (UK), it's simply the presence of events that gives you a diagnosis of "Obstructive/Central/Mixed Sleep Apnea" and it's sleep apnea with associated symptoms including tiredness, daytime sleepiness, headaches, etc that are labelled "Obstructive (or whatever) Sleep Apnea Syndrome". And we only have to look at people who still report feeling cruddy with an AHI of 4 or 5, but who only start feeling better when they get the numbers down even lower than that.
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#29
RE: Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
I feel it's important to point out that my CSA isn't controlled right now as I keep chasing up my ASV, but despite that, CPAP is clearly making a difference, even if it's only halving my events and my AHI is still in the severe category.

I fell asleep while getting ready for a nap a week or so ago, with my pulse ox in place but off, before putting on my mask. I guess I woke up enough to notice my pulse ox wasn't running after about ten minutes or so and turned it on but didn't click that I wasn't wearing my mask (I don't even remember doing it, to be honest). So as a result, I have the pulse ox data from sleeping without the PAP for 2 hours.

It's ugly. Really, really ugly. Even with the CPAP not controlling my CSA, the difference is still massive. The screaming headache that lasted the rest of the day (and threatened to trigger a migraine which would have been 3 days of misery for me) made me one hundred percent sure that I will NEVER voluntarily sleep unmasked again. Even though I'm ALWAYS super tired and sleepy during the day, I was dropping off literally every five or ten minutes, and it was driving me crazy as I had things to do. I felt weak, tearful, irritable... just awful in a way that I hadn't for a long time. I couldn't concentrate, the mental fog was SO bad, and it took me a good hour to properly be able to think after waking up.

Those symptoms, and the severity of them, were things that were far more common before starting CPAP. In addition, my migraine frequency had been going up and up, and since the CPAP, it seems to have dropped back to a better place again (thank God).

So yeah. Never doing that again. If the pain wasn't bad enough, the sats would be.
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#30
RE: Anyone stopped using their CPAP for a night? Whats it feel like?
Wow.....after reading thru this thread, I feel so very fortunate to be able to sleep w/o my machine as well or even better than with it. 

I don't experience any of the problems and issues that some of you have mentioned if you go w/o. That's part of my battle to continue it's use. I sleep 100% fine w/o the therapy. 

But, I am continuing my therapy. I'm focusing on using it longer thru the night and well into the morning. I'm shooting for at least 7 hrs. of use each time.  Cool
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