04-24-2025, 02:01 AM
Waking Up Despite Using CPAP Machine
Hi guys,
I was diagnosed with sleep apnea a few years ago and subsequently got myself a CPAP machine and started using it for I think about four months. It was a tricky process that I didn't notice any improvement in my energy quality from, and the kicker was, my doctor told me after my follow-up sleep test that actually, my apnea is "very mild" and that it's my choice if I want to keep using the machine or not. I decided to stop using it.
Generally, my apnea responds well to me sleeping on my stomach. I've done that for the past few years and I only wake up around 1-2 times during the night when I do it. I know that sleeping this way isn't good for my neck, back, or skin though so in the past three days, I decided to experiment and forced myself to sleep on my back and on my side to see how that would go. Well lo and behold, after doing that I was getting awful stress dreams that I've had before when sleeping in these positions and which I assume are caused by apnea, and waking up after them pretty much every hour. The one night I must've woken up 7 times.
So I'm thinking, this is ridiculous, even if my sleep apnea is "very mild" like my doctor said, it clearly needs to be addressed. I probably shouldn't be belly sleeping all my life, and even if I did, I still don't get great sleep doing that -- I'm going to try the CPAP again. So tonight, I pull my old machine out, put on my mask, and go to sleep on my back (because why belly sleep when I have my machine to help me now!). It takes me forever to fall asleep -- always does -- but once I do, I again have a stress dream and wake up hot, anxious, and with my mouth open and air pouring out of it. My left nostril also feels a little congested after I take the mask off. My machine says I've been using it for just over 3 hours, which probably means I was awake for about 2 and a half hours, fell asleep, and then woke up after a half hour (I remember being awake for a longggg time before the dream started, and the dream wasn't a long one).
This is the same kind of thing that happened to me when I used my CPAP the first go through. Difficulty keeping my mouth shut once asleep and waking up several times with it open or with the mask tossed off. And so, my questions are: what do you guys think is happening here? Why am I still getting apneas that are causing me to have stress dreams and wake up, even with the machine? Is the pressure set too low? Should I not be sleeping on my back, even with a CPAP? Should I buy a chin strap to keep my mouth shut?
It's all very confusing to me, and I wish I could give more information about my machine settings and diagnostics. I don't have any analytics set up for my sleep (don't even have an SD card yet), I don't remember the number of APIs my doctor told me I had after that last sleep test (but like I said, he said my case is "very mild"), and have no idea what he put the pressure settings at (the pressure seemed to go up to 6.0 though when I put on my mask tonight). So I hope what I wrote up there is enough to give something to go on, but please feel free to ask me follow-up questions.
Thank you!
I was diagnosed with sleep apnea a few years ago and subsequently got myself a CPAP machine and started using it for I think about four months. It was a tricky process that I didn't notice any improvement in my energy quality from, and the kicker was, my doctor told me after my follow-up sleep test that actually, my apnea is "very mild" and that it's my choice if I want to keep using the machine or not. I decided to stop using it.
Generally, my apnea responds well to me sleeping on my stomach. I've done that for the past few years and I only wake up around 1-2 times during the night when I do it. I know that sleeping this way isn't good for my neck, back, or skin though so in the past three days, I decided to experiment and forced myself to sleep on my back and on my side to see how that would go. Well lo and behold, after doing that I was getting awful stress dreams that I've had before when sleeping in these positions and which I assume are caused by apnea, and waking up after them pretty much every hour. The one night I must've woken up 7 times.
So I'm thinking, this is ridiculous, even if my sleep apnea is "very mild" like my doctor said, it clearly needs to be addressed. I probably shouldn't be belly sleeping all my life, and even if I did, I still don't get great sleep doing that -- I'm going to try the CPAP again. So tonight, I pull my old machine out, put on my mask, and go to sleep on my back (because why belly sleep when I have my machine to help me now!). It takes me forever to fall asleep -- always does -- but once I do, I again have a stress dream and wake up hot, anxious, and with my mouth open and air pouring out of it. My left nostril also feels a little congested after I take the mask off. My machine says I've been using it for just over 3 hours, which probably means I was awake for about 2 and a half hours, fell asleep, and then woke up after a half hour (I remember being awake for a longggg time before the dream started, and the dream wasn't a long one).
This is the same kind of thing that happened to me when I used my CPAP the first go through. Difficulty keeping my mouth shut once asleep and waking up several times with it open or with the mask tossed off. And so, my questions are: what do you guys think is happening here? Why am I still getting apneas that are causing me to have stress dreams and wake up, even with the machine? Is the pressure set too low? Should I not be sleeping on my back, even with a CPAP? Should I buy a chin strap to keep my mouth shut?
It's all very confusing to me, and I wish I could give more information about my machine settings and diagnostics. I don't have any analytics set up for my sleep (don't even have an SD card yet), I don't remember the number of APIs my doctor told me I had after that last sleep test (but like I said, he said my case is "very mild"), and have no idea what he put the pressure settings at (the pressure seemed to go up to 6.0 though when I put on my mask tonight). So I hope what I wrote up there is enough to give something to go on, but please feel free to ask me follow-up questions.
Thank you!
