Removing mask

[Sleepster]

Thank you. Being new to all this I was just trying to figure our what was up and i noticed that every time one of these happen I would take off the mask. Thought there might be a connection.

I believe there is a connection. You are unconsciously reacting to the obstructive apnea, just as you did during the decades before you were diagnosed. The problem got progressively worse and your body had to develop techniques to wake you up so you could start breathing again. Imagine your brain as a control center, able to send signals to the rest of your body. It detects low oxygen and high CO2 in your bloodstream and signals the lungs to breathe. But despite the effort on the part of your diaphragm, the lungs don't take in any air. The only thing that can be done to solve the problem is make you wake up. Perhaps you're the type of person who falls asleep and stays asleep easily, so it's particularly hard for your brain to wake you up. It considers you to be stubborn!

The good news is that you will adapt and this issue will abate. The bad news is that if you continue to take your mask off and go back to sleep the brain will have to go back to its old regime of waking you to breathe and that will interfere with the adaptation process, perhaps putting a stop to it.

The solution is to apply some straps, bobby pins, velcro, or whatever it takes to keep that mask on. You may need something extreme such as a helmet liner! But keep in mind that this is all temporary. Hopefully you'll adapt and no longer need it.

As others have pointed out, obstructive events will happen. They happen to everyone almost every time we sleep. When the magnitude gets too large CPAP therapy is needed. Even with a CPAP machine you can have up to 5 events per hour and still be considered to have things under control. If you had up to 5 events per hour without a CPAP machine you'd be diagnosed as "normal" and no CPAP therapy would be prescribed. This assumes, of course, that there are no other medical conditions conflating the issues.

[medwards0050]

I tried increasing the pressure to 13. It seems to have helped some. I managed to were the mask almost 4 hours lat night. I may try to increase it a little more tonight and see what happens.