Newbie would like to hear success stories, please.

Copying a pasting from my thread about my situation here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=186082&p=1443982#p1443982

Wanted to post an update of my situation, since seeing a ton of UARS help posts with no resolutions listed was a little nerve-wracking.

I am 5 months into PAP therapy and it is awesome!! Absolutely night and day. I saw Dr. Gold on Long Island who I love. He prescribed me a resmed airsense 11, pressure 4-8. I have EPR set to 3 which helped me get used to it. I use an n20i mask which has been great as a side sleeper. Took me two masks to find one that I liked. I have been thinking about maybe trying nasal pillows. Dr. Gold was adamantly anti full face mask. It took maybe a week or 2 to get comfortable with PAP therapy, and I think a big part of that was my mask. The first mask I used was an n30i - as a side sleeper, I was basically crushing the tube that runs down the side on the side I sleep on, which limited airflow and made me feel like I wasn't getting enough air.

I started to feel a difference a few weeks - a month in. As an auxiliary benefit, my ADHD and anxiety are gone (I am off SSRIs now - Dr. Gold and others believe that sleep disordered breathing can create anxiety/depression/executive functioning issues with the brain, and the more I read into it the more I agree with him and his peers who share that opinion). My testosterone levels are back to normal - they were incredibly low, especially given the fact that I'm a 24 y/o male, and my heart rate has gone down. No more random feelings of a super fast heart rate.

I am considering getting MMA surgery (many of Dr. Gold's patients do as a permanent fix) so I won't ever need to use PAP therapy again, but I don't really have an issue with my CPAP and don't really want to deal with a surgery like that if I don't have to. Maybe that will change after I spend more time with my CPAP.

If you have UARS or are in a similar situation, feel free to reach out for advice etc!

Hello I am success story . I’ve been using cpap since June 2013. I just had an appointment with my sleep doctor today and according to my printout my results have been really good. I am currently 45 years old soon to be 46. My advice for everyone is to keep using it and it will work.

Now that I've come across this thread, I'm posting my story here in the hope that it helps somebody else:

viewtopic/t188275/CPAP-journey--18-months-in.html

I have had a bit of success (improvement) in the past six months by using a new type mask. Large Leaks are down as well as AHIs and Flow Limitations. I am now looking to convert OSCAR Statistics data to graphs to better track improvements. I find the Overview bar graphs too busy for me to use.

ejbpesca 17 years user of CPAP

I have been using an auto-bipap for 18+ years. Consistently I have AHI of less than one. It still makes me smile when I see 0.0 on my data screen.
Bragging? Yes, but also encouraging others that it does happen, even after all these years. For me it just took finding the right mask, right machine and right pressure.

Catnapper - Joanie

Depending on how you define "success"... I might be one of those rare people who had a complete turnaround the very first day. A newer, happier, more energetic me. And it has remained consistently so in the two months I've been on it. I now can't imagine sleeping without it, that's how bad I don't want to go back to the old me, not even just for one day.

However, I'm still adjusting to the actual machine, mask, etc. I'm on my 4th mask and so far it is the best, or rather, least worst. I'm still fooling with the tension and comfort, sometimes waking up being annoyed with it, either it's too tight and bothering my skin or too loose and leaking, maybe throwing air up into my eye and worsening my dry eye. I've had to go to using drops and gels on my eyeballs every night. But apparently it's not leaking enough to report, because my "high leak time" is always zero.

The machine's electronic algorithm is incomprehensible. The one on the display doesn't exactly match the one that uploads onto my phone and that really bothers the exacting engineer in me. For example, the display will tell me my score is 100, then the upload will say 94. Things aren't off enough to matter really, the machine might be calculating things two different ways: One for the morning display, with the goal of encouragement, and another way to upload for insurance compliance. But why? A score of 100 with a smiley face no less when the real score is only 94 feels like a participation trophy instead of honesty, if that's what they're doing.

Then there's the whole question of how and how often to wash what, I've still not set up the recurring supply delivery because I was going to settle on a mask first. So it's just all these tasks added to my life to keep up with the contraption I'm still struggling with. I guess it will eventually settle into a routine but I'm not there yet.

But the most important thing is it's working, and working well. I'm averaging 6 1/2 to 8 hours of sleep every night and 0-1 get up to pee, waking up energentic and happy. Before I would sleep 4-6 hours and pee 1-3 times a night, then wake up feeling horrible wishing I weren't even alive. So yes, it's a success.