But I Felt Fine Before

[Greyfort]

I was so startled when they diagnosed me with sleep apnea, telling me that I stopped breathing every 2 minutes during the night.

Why? Because every night I would fall asleep quickly. I slept through the night, not waking up until morning. I felt fine and refreshed.

I was not tired all day. I had no cognitive problems. I had no headaches. I did not take naps. I didn't feel sleepy while driving, watching TV or reading.

Since I got the CPAP machine, I yawn all the time and just keep wanting to go back to bed. I'm like, "Well NOW I'm tired."

My Cardiologist felt certain that I must have sleep apnea, because I'm over 100 lbs overweight. But I felt fine before. Now I don't.

I've been very puzzled by this whole thing.

[49er]

I was so startled when they diagnosed me with sleep apnea, telling me that I stopped breathing every 2 minutes during the night.

Why? Because every night I would fall asleep quickly. I slept through the night, not waking up until morning. I felt fine and refreshed.

I was not tired all day. I had no cognitive problems. I had no headaches. I did not take naps. I didn't feel sleepy while driving, watching TV or reading.

Since I got the CPAP machine, I yawn all the time and just keep wanting to go back to bed. I'm like, "Well NOW I'm tired."

My Cardiologist felt certain that I must have sleep apnea, because I'm over 100 lbs overweight. But I felt fine before. Now I don't.

I've been very puzzled by this whole thing.

Hi Greyfort,

There are definitely people (percentage is unknown) that feel worse when using cpap in spite of being 100% compliant. It doesn't mean their diagnosis was not correct. And as far as I know, apnea misdiagnosis' are quite rare because that is something that is backed up by data unlike other medical conditions. Having said that, you might want to undergo another sleep study if it would put your mind at ease.

The other possibility is you might be experiencing other medical conditions that have nothing to do with sleep apnea. Have you checked to make sure about that?

Additionally, could your weight also now be an issue that perhaps you need to address?

Best of luck in sorting things out.

49er

PS - I haven't checked your other thread but is your therapy optimized?

[BlackSpinner]

get a copy of your sleep study and post it and people will explain it to you.
add your equipment and get sleephead software and post the graphs.

Yes you can "feel fine" but your organs maybe being fried. You have a cardiologists so you probably are not "fine" or you wouldn't be seeing one.

[chunkyfrog]

Before cpap, I had a much lower expectation of what "fine" should feel like.
After about four months, my definition of "fine" had leaped to new levels.
After five years, I know cpap has saved my life.
Be patient; follow the suggestions here to make your therapy more effective and comfortable.
Welcome to the party.

[Wulfman...]

I was so startled when they diagnosed me with sleep apnea, telling me that I stopped breathing every 2 minutes during the night.

Why? Because every night I would fall asleep quickly. I slept through the night, not waking up until morning. I felt fine and refreshed.

I was not tired all day. I had no cognitive problems. I had no headaches. I did not take naps. I didn't feel sleepy while driving, watching TV or reading.

Since I got the CPAP machine, I yawn all the time and just keep wanting to go back to bed. I'm like, "Well NOW I'm tired."

My Cardiologist felt certain that I must have sleep apnea, because I'm over 100 lbs overweight. But I felt fine before. Now I don't.

I've been very puzzled by this whole thing.

As was asked in subsequent posts, please add your equipment AND SETTINGS to your profile.
Many things could be causing what you're now experiencing.......mainly having a poorly configured machine. It happens.
But, if you have a data-capable machine, get the software and optimize your therapy, the tiredness should go away.

Also, if they caught your sleep apnea before it got progressively worse, chances are your health will be better. For many of us, our health had declined before we were diagnosed........heart attacks, strokes, Diabetes, etc.
And, Sleep Apnea can CAUSE weight gain.

Start looking at your glass as "half full" instead of "half empty".


Den

.

[PoolQ]

I personally felt just fine right up to asking my wife to drive me to the hospital, I didn't feel all that bad, just something was not quite right. A double bypass and two stents later, well I was feeling just fine before.

It might seem like it should, but experience says it does not have to feel bad right before it goes very bad. Also, starting treatment does not reverse everything and send you back to being 17 again.

[Greyfort]

It took me a while to figure out where to change my Profile. I'm a moderator on a forum with this format, so I should have figured it out sooner. As soon as I finally saw User Control Panel, I went, "Duh, of course." But it was on the opposite side of the page, so it took me a while to spot it. I think I got my machine right. I hope.

Anyway, the reason I went to see a Cardiologist was because my heart was skipping beats. They did an echocardiogram, blood tests, a few ECGs, I wore a holter monitor for 48 hours and then I went to visit with the Cardiologist. She acted like I was wasting her time. She said, "You're right. Your heart skips beats. Try to get used to it and not let it bother you. I don't need to see you again."

My Dad is 85 and he has had skipped beats for decades. They told him it's just the way that his heart beats. Mine actually stopped skipping beats back in August, as mysteriously as it began doing it.

However, the doctor did want me to do a sleep study because of my weight. She said, "I'd be willing to bet that someone of your size has sleep apnea," and that's how I ended up doing the sleep study.

Doing a Google search, I've actually come across a few people who have mentioned the same breathing problems during the day about a month into using their CPAP machines. One said that C-Flex helped them, as it releases the pressure when you exhale. One thing that has bothered me is that I've felt that it has been difficult to breathe out, ever since I got that mask. When I tried it on at the store I told her that I couldn't breathe out, but she got mad at me and said that I hadn't even used it yet, to find that out.

[PoolQ]

I had the same breathing out problem and I did not have to use it for very long at all before I noticed it. I had the AirSense Autoset and there is a setting in the clinicians menu called EPR (exhale pressure relief) that is set at 2 as default, I changed it to 3 and it was better. I am now using a BiLevel machine AirCurve VPAP just because of my problem with breathing out into pressure.

Do you have the clinicians manual? Do you know how to access the clinicians menu? Does your machine have an EPR setting?

[Julie]

What your cardiologist(?) is not telling you is that 'skipped beats' are likely atrial fibrillation, an arrythmia that goes along with many apnea patients and some end up with pacemakers if they don't do Cpap (and even if they do). Your doctor is not being straight with you and I don't understand why she hasn't done more testing.

You can compare notes and speculate til the cows come home on the net, but until you know for sure what's going on with you, you are not going to be able to relax and maybe not feel 100%. I'm curious to hear what happens at your appt tomorrow.

[Greyfort]

I'll be glad to see my doctor tomorrow, because I'm really struggling with anxiety now. Once anxiety sets in, it becomes difficult to tell the difference between a symptom and the anxiety reaction. I would imagine that if I had a blocked artery or something, they would have seen that on the echocardiogram.

My Mom has affib, but she's 87. Even with the affib, they tell her that she's got a very strong heart. My Dad has the skipped heart beats, or I guess they're actually premature beats and not actually a skipped beat. He's 85.

But they're both normal weights. My Mom weighs about 103 lbs. My Mom and I are both about 5 ft tall. My Dad's 6 ft, but I outweigh him by quite a bit.

I'm not sure what an EPR setting is.

[Pugsy]

Have you seen the provider manual for your machine?
It explains EPR which is exhale pressure relief.
If you haven't really looked at the provider manual you might take some time to see what features your machine offers.
https://sleep.tnet.com/home/files/resme ... -guide.pdf

[Julie]

It's now believed that apnea causes overweight, not the other way around - that's an old myth.