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BiPap Blues -- Why Am I Still Tired/Depressed After One Year?
#1
BiPap Blues -- Why Am I Still Tired/Depressed After One Year?
Hey Guys--new to forumSmile

I am a 41-year-old, mom of three to five (two in college--one very other weekend). I was a single mom for 6 years until I met my current husband in 2012. In 2013, he began to worry as he noticed me stop breathing repeatedly), loud snoring--the whole 9 yards.

The fool even videotaped my snoring (I say fool lovingly as he was my apnea advocate). At the time I was not overweight, but have gained about 18 pounds since 2014. I had a septoplasty/turbinoplasty in 12/14 to fix deviated septum and reduce size of turbines. The insurance finally agreed to a sleep study--and sure enough--my oxygen level was 79% and I experienced zero REM cycle during the overnight sleep test.
Huhsign
We tried CPAP, but they bumped me up to BiPap with a high pressure range (most people are shocked at how high it is!).

One year later, I am still exhausted. I have a sleep tracker with ResMed, which indicates me pulling off my mask 3 to 4 hours in to sleep--something I don't realize/remember doing. A lot of mornings, I will reapply my mask and sleep until noon (after getting kids off to school).

I am just wondering WHY I am so tired all the time? Even after good nights (5 to 6 hours!). My mom thinks I am the laziest person in the world. I have a lot of guilt over how tired and disinterested in life I have become. I take an anti-depressant, anxiety medication and Gabbapentin for nerve pain. I used to be a triathlete--now due to spine issues, I am limited to swimming only.

I DREAM about that feeling when you bounce out of bed--full of energy--but it eludes me. Can anyone understand why my BiPap doesn't seem to work?

P.S. I have a friend who works for a sleep lab, and when she told her respiratory therapist my settings, the therapist was SHOCKED. She said most patients with that setting are severely obese and have terrible OSA....

Thanks for listening and any insights you may have!
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#2
RE: BiPap Blues -- Why Am I Still Tired/Depressed After One Year?
Well you're in a good place right here. We will need some more information. You need to get your manual http://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap-pr...tup-manual
(this is a link from the top of the page) and then you can see what the machine is set at pressure wise, humidity, temperature, and everything that it is using to treat you.

Find the sleepyhead link above http://OSCAR Official Download Page ----> CLICK HERE ./ and install this free program. There is lots of info around here on how to use sleepyhead to read the data from your machine and post some of it to us here so we can see what is going on.

All we know now is that you are not the "default" user for the machine settings. I have heard of some that are default, just never met any.
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#3
RE: BiPap Blues -- Why Am I Still Tired/Depressed After One Year?
(04-06-2016, 03:10 PM)sleepyintexas74 Wrote: The insurance finally agreed to a sleep study--and sure enough--my oxygen level was 79% and I experienced zero REM cycle during the overnight sleep test.
What was the diagnostic AHI? What did the diagnostic sleep study say about snoring and RERAs? What did the diagnostic sleep study say about PLMD? And how much time was your O2 level below 90%? How long was it below 80%?

Quote:Huhsign
We tried CPAP, but they bumped me up to BiPap with a high pressure range (most people are shocked at how high it is!).
How high is high? IPAP =??? and EPAP = ??? Are you using Auto BiPAP or fixed BiPAP?

Quote:One year later, I am still exhausted. I have a sleep tracker with ResMed, which indicates me pulling off my mask 3 to 4 hours in to sleep--something I don't realize/remember doing. A lot of mornings, I will reapply my mask and sleep until noon (after getting kids off to school).
In an average night, how much time are you sleeping without the mask on? I know you're pulling the mask off without remembering it, but if you are sleeping 3-4 hours with the mask on and then another 2-3 hours without the mask before you wake up to get the kids off to school, that could explain why you are still exhausted and still have depression issues.

What have you tried doing to prevent yourself from removing your mask in your sleep?

And what does the machine say your AHI is when you are using the machine?

Finally, the sleep tracker software from Resmed shows you only a small amount of the total data recorded by your machine. Would you consider downloading and installing SleepyHead on your computer and looking at all the data?

Quote:I am just wondering WHY I am so tired all the time? Even after good nights (5 to 6 hours!). My mom thinks I am the laziest person in the world. I have a lot of guilt over how tired and disinterested in life I have become. I take an anti-depressant, anxiety medication and Gabbapentin for nerve pain.
Without seeing all of the data in SleepyHead for a couple of typical nights, it's pretty difficult to address your very important question of why you are still feeling so tired.

One part of the puzzle is this: How infrequent are the good nights? If you only have 1-2 good nights a week, then that may explain why you're still feeling so crappy. But then the question becomes: How can we help you increase the number of good nights to 5-6 good nights per week instead of 1 or 2? But to answer that question we need a lot more data that is easily obtained by looking at what your machine records using the SleepyHead software.

In particular, we need to see:
  • The AHI data and when the events are happening during the night.
  • The usage pattern data for a month or more. Intermittent usage caused by pulling the mask off can be an issue.
  • The leak data---both the 95% leak rate and the leak graph itself. Sometimes largish leaks will wake people up just enough to make them pull the mask off.
  • The pressure curves if you are using Auto bi-level

And then there's the fact that you are also dealing with depression issues. While depression can be a symptom of untreated OSA and while properly optimized CPAP treatment for OSA can lead to a lessening of depression symptoms, it's also possible that your depression is not directly caused by your OSA. In that case optimal CPAP therapy might make the depression easier to treat, but it may not make as big of a difference as you were hoping it would.

So it's also important consider your meds:

Which antidepressant are you on? Has it ever made much of a difference in your mood? And have you told the doc who prescribed the antidepressant that you are still feeling depressed and have become disinterested in life? And that you feel guilty about that fact?

Likewise what antianxiety meds are you on? Do they work? Or do you still feel anxious a lot of the time?

Likewise with the Gabbapentin for the nerve pain: Does it work reasonably well to control your nerve pain? Or are you still dealing with a lot of physical pain issues? Do you experience a lot of nerve pain when you are trying to get to sleep at night? Are you in pain when you wake up? And have you talked to the doc who prescribed the Gabbapentin about whether it's working?


Quote: Can anyone understand why my BiPap doesn't seem to work?
Without seeing the actual data recorded by your machine, it's impossible to speculate why your BiPAP doesn't seem to make much of a difference. It does sound on the surface like you have more than just the OSA going on medically wise. And it could be that you won't feel much better until all of your chronic medical conditions are under control with appropriate optimal therapy.

Having said that, I will add that it took me about a year of PAPing to start to feel better on a consistent basis. Feeling better took not only learning how to sleep well with my BiPAP all night, it also took reteaching my body how to sleep well in the first place. (I have a lot of insomnia issues.) And it also took bringing my chronic headache and TMJ problems under control. And it took some counseling for anger management since I *loathed* the presence of the BiPAP in my life for a long, long time. So I can understand the frustration of being a year into PAPing and not feeling any better quite well.

Questions about SleepyHead?  
See my Guide to SleepyHead
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#4
RE: BiPap Blues -- Why Am I Still Tired/Depressed After One Year?
Hi sleepyintexas74,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
I’m sorry you are having such a rough time of things right now.
Hang in there and don’t give up.
Much success to you in getting your CPAP therapy fine-tuned to meet your needs.
Feel free to post more information so we can help you.
trish6hundred
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#5
RE: BiPap Blues -- Why Am I Still Tired/Depressed After One Year?
What Robysue and PoolQ said.
That software will save your life but you have to use it!

Hang in there and we'll see if we cant get you tuned up.

Cheers!

Smile
"With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable." - Thomas Foxwell Buxton

Cool
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