Sleep Apnea

gettingready

Thanks - ss a smoker of over 25 years I am fully aware of the risks/damages but again as a smoker... find it hard to just give up.

And I am really looking for personal experiences from people suffering from sleep Apnea.

green1970

Hi there gettingready - have you thought about trying an e-cigarette. I know there's nothing worse than someone trying to get you to stop smoking when you don't want to as I'm like this too but I tried one of these on a Groupon thinking, ah, it'll be handy at work as I can just go in the loo instead of popping home for a ciggie. I never expected for a second for it to be actually better than smoking. So I told myself I'm not giving up smoking but I haven't actually picked a real cigarette up in over a month now and my morning cough has gone, I'm sleeping much better as everything's come off my lungs and my carbon monoxide is now at zero. It might be worth a try, even if you just replace about half your cigarettes with it, just to see if it improves things for you.

Violetta_2

What kind of mask do you have? Just thinking if its just the nose one, maybe a full face mask would be better? is it the right size, maybe the pressure isn't right? As Jojo say's contact your sleep clinic it doesn't sound like CPAP is working at all for you.

gettingready

Thanks - I have a full face mask and the pressure has already been put up for me as it was set too low for the first month or so.

My particular sleep clinic does not offer any other brand of face masks only the one I have with a choice of nose only or full face one.

I am not very happy with the design of the mask to be honest, very uncomfortable no matter how many times and how I try to adjust it.

What I do nto understand is that I had an oxygen test before I was given the CPAP (little thingy to wear on my finger over 2 nights to measure my oxygen levels overnigh) but none while I am wearing it. All they do it collect the data card every now and again and never measure the oxygen as they did prior to giving me the mask.

I will try to get an appointment with the doctor and see what he says.

Thanks again.

Violetta_2

That sounds similar to my experience re the monitoring, don't think it tell's them much more than you've used it & if there have been any leaks so like you say how do they know if it's actually working,can you contact the sleep clinic direct, my clinic has a number to leave a message for the nurses & they get back to you quite quickly, the nurses are really helpful, but I understand it's different all over the country. The people on this forum seem like a nice bunch http://www.britishsnoring.co.uk/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=4

gettingready

Thank you Violetta.

I did call them today and they tried to fob me off with an appointment with a nurse - I do not want to see a nurse, I want to see my consultant.

Got to call his secretary and she is only in twice per week.

Right now got another, possible serious health worry on top of this one so....

Will check the link you have posted, thanks a lot for that.

floss2

gettingready wrote: »

Thank you Violetta.

I did call them today and they tried to fob me off with an appointment with a nurse - I do not want to see a nurse, I want to see my consultant.

Got to call his secretary and she is only in twice per week.

Right now got another, possible serious health worry on top of this one so....

Will check the link you have posted, thanks a lot for that.

I was going to suggest an appointment with the consultant may be required.....but you're already trying that one! Do you need your GP to refer you again? Or is there an open-access clinic that you can drop into to maybe arrange to get the on-mask oxygen levels checked?

Barneysmom

Might not be that at all.
It might be your bladder waking you, I wake up most nights for the loo round about 3 to 4 o'clock. I'm always shattered and have to nap sometimes.

gettingready

OK - today had results of my bladder/pelvis/kidneys scan - GP referred me when I was complaning about having to pee way too often and waking up few times every night.

Something the size of 1/3 of my kidney is growing on it so... another worry.

Referral to a hospital for next week Wednesday (was done as urgent).

As if I did nto have enough problems...

Thanks a lot everyone for posting.

Ah, no I do not need my GP to re-refer me to sleep clinic, i deal with them directly.

Barneysmom

Oh dear, I hope it isn't anything serious, you've got me worried now xx