I have recently begun a journey, a journey into the treatment of Sleep Apnea. I have suspected it for quite some time but was not willing to admit it to myself. I have done the sleep study and my apnea is on the low side of the severe range.
I am still struggling with my feelings about my new reality, one thing I have recognized is that this diagnosis feels an awful lot like my Type 2 diagnosis, I feel that it is something that I must now deal with actively for the rest of my life. Like my diabetes I do not feel that I will ever be freed from its clutches.
I have found that there is more connection between type 2 and apnea than my feelings about them. Recent studies have shown a connection between T2 and apnea and that it has been show to be a contributing factor in type 2 diabetes.
I have so far experienced four night with my new friend Mr. CPAP. My journey has just begun, it is estimated that 23 percent of all type 2s are on the same path, does anyone mind if I walk with you. .
There’s a strong history of sleep apnea in my family. My father likely had undiagnosed sleep apnea; he snored loudly. He also worked rotating shifts ( a rotation of days, afternoon, and midnight shifts). I am number five of seven siblings. The first three are diagnosed and using CPAP machines. My brother received his diagnosis after a stroke. I’ve read that untreated sleep apnea raises the risk of heart disease and strokes.
I fear I’m a future hose head. While no one aspires to this elevated distinction, the treatment looks easier than dosing insulin!
I’ve been struggling with sleep apnea for some years. I have trouble getting a good night’s sleep and it is just complicated. I wear a auto BIPAP which is supposed to adjust to my needs but I have problems with the face mask sealing properly as well as dealing with excessive pressures causing me to have “gas.” And despite all that I also awake early and have to take Melatonin to sleep through the night. But other than that, things seem hunky dorry. How about you?
Oh, Stemwinder - I feel for you!! My dear little boy was on c-pap b4 he passed. He actually liked the C-pap with 02 supplement b/c he felt so much better.
I don’t know that I have sleep apnea, but I’ve been mildly suspicious about it for years. I know that I sometimes wake myself up with a loud snort, and suspect that that might have followed a period of not breathing. And I snore loudly. My partner can sometimes hear me from the living room. One thing that I’ve noticed lately is that I don’t seem to feel well rested unless I get a total of 9-10 hours of sleep. As one might suspect, at my age that usually means at least two shifts of sleep. My blood pressure seems to be better on days after I’ve had a lot of sleep, so that, too, makes me a little suspicious.
One of these days I guess I should indicate my suspicions to my doctor. I’ve been reluctant to do so, I think mostly because I’m afraid I might need one of those CPAP contraptions, and I fear I’d have a difficult time sleeping with one.
So how are you getting along with your CPAP, Gary? Is it as annoying as I believe it would be?
I strongly believe that my sleep apnea contributed to poor control of my diabetes before I treated it. When I was diagnosed with sleep apnea I was having apnea events (stopping breathing) some 35 times an hour. At one point I was observed to have stopped breathing for nearly 3 minutes. When this happens your oxygen levels drop and your body screams “EMERGENCY!” In fact, this is the real issue. Your body wakes you up so you don’t die with two major consequences. First, you never actually get a good night’s sleep. You are supposed to go through 5 stages of sleep (1, 2, 3, 4 and REM). And if you don’t make it properly through the stages of sleep you won’t get properly rested.
The second problem is that when your body wakes you to keep you from dying it generates a stress response. You have a release of cortisol, adrenaline, etc. This constant flood of stress hormones can cause real problems. Some people think this is why those with sleep apnea are at higher risk of CVD as well as diabetes. I can tell you for sure that having a poor night’s sleep with lots of apnea leaves me with a wicked case of Darn Phenomenon. I also can notice that a poor night’s sleep which deprives me of oxygen can leave me with morning headaches.
Using a CPAP can be a pain. It can take some time to get used to it. It takes some effort to get the settings right. And at least for me, I have a mustache and am what they call a “mouth breather” it means that I have to use a full face mask. But in the end, we have to do what it takes to maintain our health. I realize that if I don’t manage my sleep apnea it will have grave health consequences.
My sleep apnea became very noticeable about four years ago. My sister would let me borrow a car for appointments, but I suddenly found I could not stay awake (or alert enough) when driving, so I had to demur.
I found a low-cost way to get tested (at home as opposed to a sleep clinic). My sleep apnea is severe. My oxygen saturation level was 72%. My sleep doctor said that she put any patient at 90% (or lower) on oxygen immediately!
I got a CPAP machine with a mask that covered my mouth and nose and I hated it. Then I figured out that when I’m sleeping, I only breathe through my nose. So, I got a mask for just my nose and I don’t hate it now.
Getting oxygen to your brain is REALLY important. Trying to get oxygen to your brain while suffering 40 apneas an hour will make you more tired than when you went to bed. It’s like trying to breathe when someone keeps putting a pillow over your face all night!
If you have it, don’t quit trying to make the CPAP work. Even if it annoys you for a while, keep at it.
Hi Stemwinder_Gary! Welcome to the club! I personally hated my C-Pap at first and struggled nightly with the noise, pressure, humidifier, and hose. Once I found a mask that truly worked for me, got the humidity/temperature set based on my likes, and worked through the initial pressure changes I found I actually got a better nights sleep - as in I actually slept! 10 years later, I am fully addicted to my C-pap, and won’t leave home without it. I put the mask on, and my body seems to have this Pavlovian response whereby I am asleep, fully asleep, in less than 5 minutes. I awake refreshed , my blood sugars are better, and my disposition is better, plus I no longer fall asleep at long stop lights.
Don’t give up on your machine yet. As an obscure factoid, unlike Dexcom, the C-Pap peripherals do not need an Rx to obtain them - just the machine. Masks, hoses, filters, cushions, etc are all available on the internet inexpensively (think major internet retailer based in Seattle). Find a mask you like, there are many variations out there, nasal only, part face, full face, with/without forehead brace, etc… Hopefully you will be glad you did!
Funny you bring that up, I have read that sleep apnea contributes to insulin resistance. I wonder if it is a coincidence that I experienced my first real low in over a year yesterday.
I have a Respironics Dreamwear mask, so far I am liking it and find it to be relatively comfortable. The issues I’m experiencing are related to becoming accustomed to wearing a mask. My biggest issue has been learning to keep my mouth shut. My pressure setting is fairly high at 12, I find that if I do not keep my jaw closed tight I will find my lips flapping in the breeze as the pressure forces them open.
I am doing better than I expected, only slightly annoyed. Every C-PAP wearer I have spoken with tells me it is worth it, in just the short time I have been on the hose I am starting to become a believer.
It may take some time to find a mask that works well for you. The one you have is just a nasal mask and if you tend to breath through your mouth it may not work. There are some straps that can help keep your mouth closed while you sleep. The real issue is that once you enter “deep sleep” your body becomes essentially paralyzed and your jaw will just open of it’s own accord.
I borrowed a chin strap from my brother and did not like it. Last night was better than previous nights, hopefully I am adjusting. I have allergies and I like the idea of breathing filtered and humidified air through my nose. For this reason I would like to avoid a full face mask.
I actually like the Quattro FX Full Face CPAP Mask. The nasal masks leak too much for my face profile and I am a mouth breather (neanderthal). A complete face mask with a forehead brace gives me headaches, so I opted for the hybrid mask. Plus, I can still wear my glasses as I attempt to read in bed - it never works though, I fall asleep too quickly.
I have been considering a full face mask as a second mask. I’m thinking there will be times when my allergies will cause enough nasal congestion to make a nasal mask impractical
I fell in love with my CPAP the first night I used it. I had very severe apnea (considering I don’t snore or noticeably stop breathing this was surprising) so finally getting oxygen felt like having my sanity returned.
I have the ResMed AutoSet for Her and 3 different masks depending on how I’m feeling.
I really like the P10 because it doesn’t blow air out of the nasal pillows very strongly, so it doesn’t blow back into my face I sleep with the covers over my head. Also it is just a tiny strap and I don’t notice it at all.
When I am not sleeping well due to tossing and turning, I’ll put on a more secure mask, the Swift FX. It’s still a nasal pillow, but it sticks more firmly to my noggin.
When I have a cold, I use a mask that covers my nose and mouth, AirFit. This took a lot of adjusting while lying down to reach a point where it didn’t squeeze my head and also not leak.
Some things that have helped me be more comfortable:
Use the largest nasal pillows my nose can handle. It helps me feel like I’m getting more air, and reduces leaks and/or “inner nose chaffing”.
Use the lightest tension on my full face mask that prevents leaks. Oddly, the more you tighten them down, you flatten the special inflatable seal and it leaks more.
Snuggle Hose! It is a soft wrap that covers your hose (and short hose) so that you don’t have some cold plasticky thing against your skin at night. Using this I went from fussing with my hose every time I rolled over to just ignoring it and letting it rest wherever it landed.
Running my hose over my headboard. I roll over … a lot! This keeps me from getting tangled in the hose. If you don’t have a headboard, there are “Hose Buddies” that you can purchase to put under the mattress to do the same thing.
Pad-a-cheek liners. They are hand-made to fit over the various parts of your mask. I really like it for my nasal pillows because it is softer, warmer and less likely to make my upper lip sweat. Really makes a difference in my comfort. They also have liners for full-face masks which can help cut down on leaks.
I perhaps could write a book about my love of my CPAP. Instead I’ll point you to cpap.com (great place to buy supplies), and cpap-talk.com which is a very active forum of other “hose heads”.
Also if you are data inclined, get a CPAP machine that lets you read the data from the sd card and load it into Sleepy Head. It can show you so much data (almost everything you can see in a real sleep study) and I used it a lot at first to fine tune my pressure settings, and tease out what was a bad night because I had lots of apneas vs just a regular old bad night.
Although I am a type 2 I do not have sleep apnea myself, something I attribute to the weight loss I achieved as part of my diabetes management. However, 3 friends of mine as well as my wife have been diagnosed with sleep apnea and need to use the mask at night. Two of those persons are obese and two are overweight. So personally I think that sleep apnea has less to do with diabetes type 2 and more to do with excess belly fat, which we know also contributes to insulin resistance and type 2.
Unfortunately this is another stereotype. According to my sleep doctor you can improve your apnea by 15-20% with weight loss. This means that if you have severe apnea and are severely overweight you could probably loss all your excess weight and still have severe apnea. There are many severely overweight people without any apnea and there are many people of normal weight with severe apnea. As I explained above, apnea causes hormonal disturbances which can in fact cause you to become insulin resistant and gain weight. In my case, my sleep doctor told me that my apnea was basically the genetic structure of my throat and mouth and that as I aged there was a loss of muscle tone which eventually caused my apnea to become severe. We must take care in mistaking association, risk and cause as being the same thing. Apnea is associated with excess weight and those with excess weight are at greater risk of apnea. But it may be simply that apnea has caused them to gain weight. Many people find that they actually lose weight once their apnea is treated with a CPAP.
Wow… that is a bit insulting and wrong to boot. I’ve had sleep apnea since I was a teen, and mine is caused by poorly aligned teeth/palate/jaw plus a tendency (even when awake) to stop breathing. Thanks but no thanks. No one here needs more blame heaped on them.
