Last night was my first night on CPAP therapy. I really don’t want to go into all the details of how this works. Suffice it to say, CPAP is a face mask that pushes air into your system under pressure while you sleep.
The idea is that with the right amount of Air Flow you won’t snore or worse choke in the middle of the night repeatedly to prevent you from getting balanced sleep.
My CPAP is set at 15 (psi?). That is a LOT of air being pushed at you. (And I’ve just realised that I think I left my headphones at work. This digression will be obvious shortly.) It feels very unnatural but fortunately, there is a ‘ramp up’ button on the device that starts you at 4 and then works up to 15 over 20 minutes. (I wish it were more like 45 minutes)
With Hose to mask to face I started it up last night. Unfortunately, thanks to a 4 yr old spending the weekend sneezing on me. I was also congested. I went to bed with one nostril blocked from congestion and the irrational belief of the sick person that as a result, only one lung was getting filled.
I must have snoozed the CPAP back down to 4 at least 4 times. And after about an hour of not being able to catch my breath and breathe at the same time. The CPAP went off. This was good because the CPAP breathing noises were driving me nuts. (Oh yes… Headset)
I am not daunted.. but I’m even more congested tonight. So this first week is going to be very slow going. I’m going to take a pseudophedrine this evening before bed. But that is also likely to wind me up.