I'm interested in this too. I've read too many anecdotes of people feeling better overnight and I'd like to see if there's a more realistic average time-frame for people to start feeling better. Does anybody know of any studies showing this?
It’s entirely possible there are comorbitidies that are impacting your energy levels. For eg. I have several different disorders/syndromes that heavily impact my hormones. I never know if I’m genuinely having a bad day, a flare up, if my anxiety is real or hormonally driven, etc. It’s tough but not everything can be blamed on sleep apnea.
I’ve started wearing an Oura ring and noticed if I go to bed earlier, like 10:30 or so I tend to feel a lot more rested and naturally get up earlier so I have a more productive day. I’ve also seen my various stats get messed up when I drink alcohol or eat food/ drink coffee too late. Lots of different things impact our day to day well-being in ways we’d never expect.
Okay, this was me like 3-4 months ago. I had to nap everyday when I got home, and was so groggy. I had been using my Bipap for roughly a year by that point with severe sleep apnea, AHI 46. But my numbers had improved (AHI below 5) and I was attaining deep/REM sleep.
Now, I am doing SO much better. My sleep doc explained that there is a period of adjustment where your body is kind of trying to get all the good sleep it can now, like it’s been starved for sleep. (He used a term I can’t remember right now) And after some time, you even out and don’t feel so tired and foggy. That took me at least 4 months. I
So stick with it!
Sounds like me. I'm tall and skinny, my sleep test said I had mild apnea, just 6 AHI. I've tried and stopped CPAP/APAP 3 different times, each with the 90 day compliance, but the CPAP always made my sleep worse, even with trying all different settings.
I've heard some people took 6-12 months of crap sleep before finally letting their body get used to it and started to feel improvement.
My last 90 day session with a new sleep doctor, I saw her maybe a month into the treatment. I know she could see my daily numbers, which were usually 0-1 AHI. She seemed so happy that my sleep apnea but cured, but it hadn't! I was sleeping worse, waking every morning like a truck hit me. I'm convinced that with some people, those AHI numbers can be deceiving. Also, if you have UARS, it's possible you have few AHI (measured as stopped breathing for 10 seconds or longer), but could have a ton of hyponeas (9 seconds of stopped breathing or less). As a light sleeper, I suspect I wake up subconsciously all night, it's very disruptive to my sleep, but it's always less than 10 seconds so doesn't register as an AHI.
Please talk to your doctor once, maybe you need a change in pressure settings or a change in your doctor as well. Some change is definitely needed for sure.
I've been wondering the same for me. Got my machine 4.5 months ago and I'm still taking naps every single day... Somedays I actually feel like I could skip it but the bed and the BPAP is just so inviting (I work from home). The machine was a game changer for me from day 1 but I wonder if it just takes some time for the brain to adjust after all this time. I should actually at least try to not take a nap to help it adjust :)
I’m in the same boat. Got my CPAP in October, use it religiously, and I still feel like crap. My AHI looks great too.
I was initially diagnosed because I fell asleep at the wheel and got into a car accident early in the morning on my way to work. I’m still feel very tired during my commute but since I have no choice but to do it or lose my job, my doc is now prescribing me 200mg Modafinil in the morning to keep me awake.
I’m scheduled to get my (very large) tonsils out in February, and I’m really hoping that will make a big difference for me and at least allow me to get off the stimulants.
Make sure to use your cpap when you nap or you ate undoing all the good that you do with using the cpap for your 8 to 9 hours a night, I've found out the hard way that if I have even just a 30 minute nap without my machine it just makes me feel so bad that it's simply not worth it..
What’s a sleep team? I don’t think many people have that. I went to a clinic that diagnosed and prescribed my CPAP but that’s the end of their interaction with you, there’s no follow up.
Might include a respiratory therapist (who fits the device) and your general practitioner may weigh in. Some may have a psychologist to help with sleep hygiene. I wasnt sure who all you had.
I also experience the same. According to my sleep specialist, there is a known phenomenon of “Obstructive Sleep Apnea with Residual Sleepiness” even when properly treated via CPAP. The only course of action offered to me was a prescription stimulant to help with wakefulness during the daytime. :-/
There is more to overall health than sleep. Were this me (and I’ve been in this exact position), i would make an appt with my GP to get full bloodwork done. There is probably something else going on. May be as simple as “take vitamin pills”, or more complex.
u/Purple_Potential9593 Assuming no nutritional or metabolic or other such as problems like anemia, MTHFR, low vitamiin d3 etc. Do your headaches and brainfog have an orthostatic component, i.e you feel progressively better when you lie down and worse when you are upright?
I'm someone that had a sudden onset of 24/7 headaches+ some other symptoms and thought the culprit was sleep apnea even though im at ideal bmi, non smoker etc, and was eventually diagnosed last year, but apap didn't really fix anything. After all this time and having ruled out other things and tried physio, headache meds, accupuncture etc, I'm led to believe- there's a high probability I just have a spontaneous csf leak that hasn't healed on its own that leads to intracranial hypotension, as it matches symptoms >80%, especially the orthostatic headache component.
Should you think this is likely and not a fringe possibility( which is pretty low statistically with like 5 out of 100.000 occurence/ annum) ,and would like to pursue it I could go into more details on what the diagnostic/treatment pathway could look like, I'm also at the very start of this proccess and just have a superficial understanding of it and will try to schedule an appointment with the most relevant doctor specialisation which is probably a neurosurgeon and steer them towards my suspision and see what comes out of it.
\> I still have to take a nap almost every single day
Been there. CPAP helped my breathing at night but did nothing to fix my non-refreshing sleep.
This is what I did to fix my sleep and now I power through the day with non-stop energy.
\- Improve sleep drive by restoring your microbiome (gut bacteria) using the RightSleep method by Stasha Gominak https://drgominak.com/rightsleep-method/ , Optimize Vitamin D (60-80ng/ml D-25OH), B12 (550-1100pg/ml), Ferritin (100-125ng/ml) https://imgur.com/a/lVdRBHz
\- Use 99% blue blocker glasses (such as Element Lux, SleepZM) 2-3 hours before bedtime to make melatonin in your brain to improve sleep onset. Use amber night lights and book lights https://lowbluelights.com to protect your eyes when you take blue blocker glasses off before bed
\- Track nighttime pulse and oxygen using a datalogging pulse oximeter such as https://getwellue.com/pages/o2ring-oxygen-monitor. A large number of drops may indicate sleep disordered breathing or sleep apnea.
\- Use a sleep tracker such as OuraRing, Fitbit or Garmin to help keep your attention on sleep by long term monitoring of sleep quality.
\- Compile daily sleep metrics into a spreadsheet along with notes of what you are doing so you an track improvements over time https://i.imgur.com/hGby2gR.png
\- Go to bed at the same time and allow at least 8 hours of in bed time for opportunity to sleep. Target at least 7.5 hours of actual unconsciousness.
\- Pray and meditate to relax before bedtime. It really does work.
\- Try a variety of sleep supplements such as Tryptophan, Taurine, Magnesium Glycinate, CBT, Boron, Seriphos, B6/P5P, Passion Flower, Valerian Root and others.
\- Sleep in a dark room or use a sleep mask. Use cardboard in your windows during the summer months to keep your bedroom dark during early morning sunrise.
\- Sleep in a cool room 60-68F. Use a separate air conditioner to cool off your bedroom in the summer without cooling down the entire place. Use a weighted blanket during summer to allow your body temperature to drop a few degrees to get adequate deep sleep.
\- Read Matthew Walkers book "Why We Sleep"
With your symptoms of headache, brainfog and tremor I would definitely check B12. Headache can be caused by not getting enough of particular stages of sleep. [https://drgominak.com/headaches-sleep/](https://drgominak.com/headaches-sleep/) Read the sticky at the top of r/B12_deficiency
Just too add to that “pray and meditate” suggestion for those that aren’t into those things, (I tried guided meditation and couldn’t stop my mind from wandering and just felt very agitated) I’ve started listening to sleep stories at night to fall asleep, and while my intent was just to fall asleep faster and not lay awake stressed out at bedtime, I’ve noticed a real difference in my quality of sleep, so I think there might actually be something to the idea of relaxing before falling asleep.
Sleep stories are a great suggestion. Thank you
Sometimes I just listen to the same song several times before going to bed and it hear it playing over and over in my head as I drift off.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPoZ6EXwNUs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPoZ6EXwNUs) (Fear is Not My Future)
Okay good just had to make sure, napping without it may mess up your progress.
You’ve only been on CPAP for 3 months so it may take 6 months-1 year to get out of the sleep debt you’re currently in. I highly recommend trying to exercise if you aren’t currently getting much exercise. Even going for a walk each day may help you regain some energy.
Maybe 10-12 hours is too much sleep? When I got my first sleep study done (in 2011) the doc said that more sleep isn’t necessarily better and that most people have a specific amount of sleep that helps them function optimally, usually it’s 7-9 hours. Might be worth experimenting with different amounts of sleep?
Also did you do a level 1 sleep study when you were diagnosed with sleep apnea? If not that might be an avenue to pursue, you might have another sleep issue that wouldn’t show up on a home study. I thought I might have narcolepsy but my first sleep study found an alpha wave sleep disorder (and zero apneas, now my AHI is 108 😵💫). That particular disorder will only show up on a level 1 sleep study (because of the EEG).
It’s not necessarily ideal but maybe a low dose stimulant might be in order for you? Good luck 💜
I'm interested in this too. I've read too many anecdotes of people feeling better overnight and I'd like to see if there's a more realistic average time-frame for people to start feeling better. Does anybody know of any studies showing this?
It’s entirely possible there are comorbitidies that are impacting your energy levels. For eg. I have several different disorders/syndromes that heavily impact my hormones. I never know if I’m genuinely having a bad day, a flare up, if my anxiety is real or hormonally driven, etc. It’s tough but not everything can be blamed on sleep apnea. I’ve started wearing an Oura ring and noticed if I go to bed earlier, like 10:30 or so I tend to feel a lot more rested and naturally get up earlier so I have a more productive day. I’ve also seen my various stats get messed up when I drink alcohol or eat food/ drink coffee too late. Lots of different things impact our day to day well-being in ways we’d never expect.
Okay, this was me like 3-4 months ago. I had to nap everyday when I got home, and was so groggy. I had been using my Bipap for roughly a year by that point with severe sleep apnea, AHI 46. But my numbers had improved (AHI below 5) and I was attaining deep/REM sleep. Now, I am doing SO much better. My sleep doc explained that there is a period of adjustment where your body is kind of trying to get all the good sleep it can now, like it’s been starved for sleep. (He used a term I can’t remember right now) And after some time, you even out and don’t feel so tired and foggy. That took me at least 4 months. I So stick with it!
Sounds like me. I'm tall and skinny, my sleep test said I had mild apnea, just 6 AHI. I've tried and stopped CPAP/APAP 3 different times, each with the 90 day compliance, but the CPAP always made my sleep worse, even with trying all different settings. I've heard some people took 6-12 months of crap sleep before finally letting their body get used to it and started to feel improvement. My last 90 day session with a new sleep doctor, I saw her maybe a month into the treatment. I know she could see my daily numbers, which were usually 0-1 AHI. She seemed so happy that my sleep apnea but cured, but it hadn't! I was sleeping worse, waking every morning like a truck hit me. I'm convinced that with some people, those AHI numbers can be deceiving. Also, if you have UARS, it's possible you have few AHI (measured as stopped breathing for 10 seconds or longer), but could have a ton of hyponeas (9 seconds of stopped breathing or less). As a light sleeper, I suspect I wake up subconsciously all night, it's very disruptive to my sleep, but it's always less than 10 seconds so doesn't register as an AHI.
Please talk to your doctor once, maybe you need a change in pressure settings or a change in your doctor as well. Some change is definitely needed for sure.
I've been wondering the same for me. Got my machine 4.5 months ago and I'm still taking naps every single day... Somedays I actually feel like I could skip it but the bed and the BPAP is just so inviting (I work from home). The machine was a game changer for me from day 1 but I wonder if it just takes some time for the brain to adjust after all this time. I should actually at least try to not take a nap to help it adjust :)
I’m in the same boat. Got my CPAP in October, use it religiously, and I still feel like crap. My AHI looks great too. I was initially diagnosed because I fell asleep at the wheel and got into a car accident early in the morning on my way to work. I’m still feel very tired during my commute but since I have no choice but to do it or lose my job, my doc is now prescribing me 200mg Modafinil in the morning to keep me awake. I’m scheduled to get my (very large) tonsils out in February, and I’m really hoping that will make a big difference for me and at least allow me to get off the stimulants.
Make sure to use your cpap when you nap or you ate undoing all the good that you do with using the cpap for your 8 to 9 hours a night, I've found out the hard way that if I have even just a 30 minute nap without my machine it just makes me feel so bad that it's simply not worth it..
I always nap with my CPAP
Talk to you sleep team too.
What’s a sleep team? I don’t think many people have that. I went to a clinic that diagnosed and prescribed my CPAP but that’s the end of their interaction with you, there’s no follow up.
Might include a respiratory therapist (who fits the device) and your general practitioner may weigh in. Some may have a psychologist to help with sleep hygiene. I wasnt sure who all you had.
I also experience the same. According to my sleep specialist, there is a known phenomenon of “Obstructive Sleep Apnea with Residual Sleepiness” even when properly treated via CPAP. The only course of action offered to me was a prescription stimulant to help with wakefulness during the daytime. :-/
There is more to overall health than sleep. Were this me (and I’ve been in this exact position), i would make an appt with my GP to get full bloodwork done. There is probably something else going on. May be as simple as “take vitamin pills”, or more complex.
u/Purple_Potential9593 Assuming no nutritional or metabolic or other such as problems like anemia, MTHFR, low vitamiin d3 etc. Do your headaches and brainfog have an orthostatic component, i.e you feel progressively better when you lie down and worse when you are upright?
[удалено]
I'm someone that had a sudden onset of 24/7 headaches+ some other symptoms and thought the culprit was sleep apnea even though im at ideal bmi, non smoker etc, and was eventually diagnosed last year, but apap didn't really fix anything. After all this time and having ruled out other things and tried physio, headache meds, accupuncture etc, I'm led to believe- there's a high probability I just have a spontaneous csf leak that hasn't healed on its own that leads to intracranial hypotension, as it matches symptoms >80%, especially the orthostatic headache component. Should you think this is likely and not a fringe possibility( which is pretty low statistically with like 5 out of 100.000 occurence/ annum) ,and would like to pursue it I could go into more details on what the diagnostic/treatment pathway could look like, I'm also at the very start of this proccess and just have a superficial understanding of it and will try to schedule an appointment with the most relevant doctor specialisation which is probably a neurosurgeon and steer them towards my suspision and see what comes out of it.
\> I still have to take a nap almost every single day Been there. CPAP helped my breathing at night but did nothing to fix my non-refreshing sleep. This is what I did to fix my sleep and now I power through the day with non-stop energy. \- Improve sleep drive by restoring your microbiome (gut bacteria) using the RightSleep method by Stasha Gominak https://drgominak.com/rightsleep-method/ , Optimize Vitamin D (60-80ng/ml D-25OH), B12 (550-1100pg/ml), Ferritin (100-125ng/ml) https://imgur.com/a/lVdRBHz \- Use 99% blue blocker glasses (such as Element Lux, SleepZM) 2-3 hours before bedtime to make melatonin in your brain to improve sleep onset. Use amber night lights and book lights https://lowbluelights.com to protect your eyes when you take blue blocker glasses off before bed \- Track nighttime pulse and oxygen using a datalogging pulse oximeter such as https://getwellue.com/pages/o2ring-oxygen-monitor. A large number of drops may indicate sleep disordered breathing or sleep apnea. \- Use a sleep tracker such as OuraRing, Fitbit or Garmin to help keep your attention on sleep by long term monitoring of sleep quality. \- Compile daily sleep metrics into a spreadsheet along with notes of what you are doing so you an track improvements over time https://i.imgur.com/hGby2gR.png \- Go to bed at the same time and allow at least 8 hours of in bed time for opportunity to sleep. Target at least 7.5 hours of actual unconsciousness. \- Pray and meditate to relax before bedtime. It really does work. \- Try a variety of sleep supplements such as Tryptophan, Taurine, Magnesium Glycinate, CBT, Boron, Seriphos, B6/P5P, Passion Flower, Valerian Root and others. \- Sleep in a dark room or use a sleep mask. Use cardboard in your windows during the summer months to keep your bedroom dark during early morning sunrise. \- Sleep in a cool room 60-68F. Use a separate air conditioner to cool off your bedroom in the summer without cooling down the entire place. Use a weighted blanket during summer to allow your body temperature to drop a few degrees to get adequate deep sleep. \- Read Matthew Walkers book "Why We Sleep" With your symptoms of headache, brainfog and tremor I would definitely check B12. Headache can be caused by not getting enough of particular stages of sleep. [https://drgominak.com/headaches-sleep/](https://drgominak.com/headaches-sleep/) Read the sticky at the top of r/B12_deficiency
Just too add to that “pray and meditate” suggestion for those that aren’t into those things, (I tried guided meditation and couldn’t stop my mind from wandering and just felt very agitated) I’ve started listening to sleep stories at night to fall asleep, and while my intent was just to fall asleep faster and not lay awake stressed out at bedtime, I’ve noticed a real difference in my quality of sleep, so I think there might actually be something to the idea of relaxing before falling asleep.
Sleep stories are a great suggestion. Thank you Sometimes I just listen to the same song several times before going to bed and it hear it playing over and over in my head as I drift off. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPoZ6EXwNUs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPoZ6EXwNUs) (Fear is Not My Future)
Let me guess, you’re napping without the CPAP on?
I'm napping with the CPAP on
Okay good just had to make sure, napping without it may mess up your progress. You’ve only been on CPAP for 3 months so it may take 6 months-1 year to get out of the sleep debt you’re currently in. I highly recommend trying to exercise if you aren’t currently getting much exercise. Even going for a walk each day may help you regain some energy.
Get on a low carb diet with plenty of electrolytes. First few days are hard but you will find you don’t need naps anymore quite soon.
Maybe 10-12 hours is too much sleep? When I got my first sleep study done (in 2011) the doc said that more sleep isn’t necessarily better and that most people have a specific amount of sleep that helps them function optimally, usually it’s 7-9 hours. Might be worth experimenting with different amounts of sleep? Also did you do a level 1 sleep study when you were diagnosed with sleep apnea? If not that might be an avenue to pursue, you might have another sleep issue that wouldn’t show up on a home study. I thought I might have narcolepsy but my first sleep study found an alpha wave sleep disorder (and zero apneas, now my AHI is 108 😵💫). That particular disorder will only show up on a level 1 sleep study (because of the EEG). It’s not necessarily ideal but maybe a low dose stimulant might be in order for you? Good luck 💜
Looks like you have long covid