My love-hate relationship with CPAP

After eight days and one significant external event, I am close to establishing a stable relationship with my CPAP. That one external event was when the CRT increased my air pressure, producing my only score below 92 in these first eight days. Correcting that maladjustment produced two nights of scores of 100, with events dropping from the early average of two to significantly less than one.

What I love;

• Sensing that my problem has almost ralready fully disappeared, as indicated by my resMed 'score' from each of the eight nights. Actually my CRT and pulmonologist probably are more in love with my scores than I am, as they dont really tell me if I am feeling or getting better. Excluding the one aberration on Wednesday (61), the result of a short night of usage (3 hr, 4 min), I've had four nights in excess of seven hours and three others above six, with the lat two nights averaging eight hours, with just one interruption and two perfect scores (100).

• Not getting up several times a night.

What I hate:

• Going to bed and getting settled with a comfortable, sustainable mask and sleep position. On my first really good night of uninterrupted sleep I woke with the feeling that I had torn a muscle or tendon in my left shoulder, and the pain lingers. Probably the result of seven hours laying on my shoulder.

• The clean up direstivers and practice. They want me to fill my water bowl with distilled water each night, empty it in the morning, clean the holder and refill, only to repeat this, throwing away about 80% of the water each night. Cleaning the tubes and parts each week and the mask each night seem ridiculously obsessive-compulsive, with no reasonable explanation given other than it will be better for me that I do this.

• The long, 'heated' tube that I don't heat. And the heating element below the water heater that I don't use.

• The prospect of not only taking this device with me on planes and for any other overnight travel, but also that this may be my device for life.

• Perhaps unrelated, but my mind tells me that it is related, I pushed my barcalounger too hard and broke the seat/back mechanism so that we just purchased a new, cloth-covered chair from Lazy-Boy. I probably needed a new chair and Dena always disliked the look of the worn brown leather in our new living room.

When I entertained the idea of taking this on, I did not think of the long-term use of the device. It may not be a cure. Instead, it may be like dialysis, i.e., a permanent companion to correct my breathing. In many respects, I'd prefer to just sleep in another bedroom or to give Dena earplugs. Bottom line is that I need to lose a lot of weight, at least twenty pounds, preferably thirty, and make the CPAP unnecessary.