Sleep update
The longer I use the CPAP, the better my sleep seems to get. I’m no longer waking up because my mouth opens (as described earlier) and it isn’t waking Tina, either. So either it’s not happening or we’ve both grown used to it. I’m now sleeping all the way through the night and often wake up before my alarm. I haven’t been able to tell what time it is when that happens because it’s dark and I can’t really see the alarm on the other side of the bed with the mask on. However, I decided to just get up the other day when it happened and it was almost exactly seven hours after I had gone to bed. A few years ago I zeroed in on seven hours as the perfect amount of sleep - any more or less would make me feel tired. I think the fact that I’m waking up unassisted now after seven hours is an excellent sign that I’m returning to normal sleep patterns.
Next week I take the CPAP machine to the technician so she can read the results. It uses changes in air pressure and resistance to record a number of statistics. The week after, I have an appointment with my sleep doctor to discuss the CPAP stats and anything else I’d like to talk about. It will be interesting to see how the machine’s log matches with the log that I started keeping when I began using the CPAP. The only complaint I have now is that my mouth is very dry when I wake but I doubt anything can be done about that.
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October 7th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
Actually, there is something you can do about the dry mouth. Steve has a humidifier attachment on his machine — you’ll be breathing moist air. Ask you sleep doc about that.
October 7th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
My machine came with the humidifier. I’ve been trying the different heat settings and they may make a difference in how well I sleep, but I’ve been afraid to turn it back down to confirm.