Newbie: Gill

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Permalink Reply by Kath Hope on December 23, 2013 at 21:44

Welcome to the forum Gill and glad you're now able to tolerate the mask.  The good news is that once people get onto good CPAP therapy most find they get less colds due to their immune system working so much better with quality sleep.

As long as you're not driving until the DVLA liaise with the sleep clinic then you're ok.  We had a recent discussion about this http://hope2sleepguide.co.uk/forum/topics/getting-driving-licence-b...

Your body can take a little while until it adapts to sleeping with the equipment, but it should soon become acclimatised that you'll fall asleep more easily.  As for the tiredness, for many people this also can take a while as there is a lot of sleep debt and healing your body is owed after years of being undiagnosed.  There are some people who feel instant relief after just one night, but for most of us it takes time.  I actually thought I'd never get sorted and you can read my brief story on the main website http://www.hope2sleep.co.uk/page/my-story

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Permalink Reply by 99 on December 23, 2013 at 21:47

phone up the local council 

and say your licence has been revoked by the dvla for medical reasons and can you have a bus pass

and maybe a disability badge later

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Permalink Reply by Terry Vella on December 24, 2013 at 6:31

Welcome Gill, it normally takes most people 3-6 months to feel the full affects of their CPAP, as Kath said we need to heal.

Can you tell us the model of Resmed you have it will be next to the power button, either an Escape, an Elite or a Autoset, also the model of mask. It's important you keep your leaks down and depending on the model of machine you can look at that data yourself with free software. The other important thing to know is your AHI, the machine will tell you, it needs to be as low as possible and below 5. At your initial sleep study they should have told your what your AHI is prior to using a CPAP or how many times on avaerage per hour you stop breathing for 10 secs or more, let us know when you can. 

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Permalink Reply by Gill Christie on December 24, 2013 at 10:20

Thanks for all the relies

I have the resmed s9 (hope that means something to you) & the resmed face (&nose) mask. my AHI has been below 5 except for one early day when it was 5, the machine is showing the mask fit as good when I press the info key.

My sleep study showed me waking 63 times an hour & a max of 88 seconds not breathing ([pretty scary when you think about it!) I'm back at the clinic for a review on Friday so was planning to speak to the DVLA after that. I wasn't told to stop driving just to inform the DVLA & fill in a form

I have lots of sleep to make up as sleep apnea was mentioned 3.5 years ago after an op I had & I was in HDU for a few days but it was never followed up, I think I've had it longer than that in reality. I sort of expected to feel better straight away but I guess it makes sense I will not for a while yet

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Permalink Reply by Terry Vella on December 26, 2013 at 23:39

Gill, it will take a while, the reason I was asking about the type of machine is you may be getting mask leaks meaning your treatment isn't as good as it should be. The green smiley face is good but you could still be getting large leaks. When you go to the clinic get them to check it out and ask for a printout of your data.

You may have had sleep apnea for much more than 3.5 years, it's an illness that slowly gets worse, it doesn't just happen, I have had it since I was a baby and only got diagnosed nearly 3 yaers ago so have lived with it for 48 years.

The longer we have had it and the more servere it is the longer it seems to take to start feeling the effects of the treatment, good luck with the clinic and let us know how you go.

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