RE: Any advice for a new cpap user who has a fear of things covering her face.
The feeling of suffocating/air hunger means that you need to raise your minimum pressure. I also recommend turning off the Ramp feature; you will get used to the prescribed pressure after a few nights.
RE: Any advice for a new cpap user who has a fear of things covering her face.
I find that if I put on the mask when I am not really ready to go to sleep, this increases my claustrophobia. I solved the issue by taking off the mask for a few minutes, until I was really tired. In the morning, as long as I have slept 5 hours of really deep sleep, that mask goes off, and I rest and/or finish sleeping for another hour or two. This system works well for me, and I resent the machine much less than before.