19 August 2015

CPAP

Tonight is my first night with my new CPAP machine. I was suppose to get it awhile ago but with my taking care of my aunt 3 hours away, I just couldn't stop in to make the appointment.

Now I don't know how many of you know what a CPAP is, so here's a brief knowledge break. Some people have this problem where they stop breathing when they are sleeping. This is sleep apnea and it happens more often if you are overweight. Basically when you are sleeping your jaw weighs down on your windpipe and blocks the air flow.  The CPAP fixes the problem by keeping a regulated flow of pressurized air going. This keeps the windpipe open.

Or at least this is how the lady explained it to me and it all makes sense in my head.

To know if you have apnea you do a sleep study. There the cover you with diodes and monitor your sleeping. I was informed from this study that I stopped breathing 56 times an hour.

Not the highest number I've heard, but still pretty bad.

Now they tried a CPAP on me during the study and in my half sleeping state I opted for the nose only mask. The other one was just too much for me to handle.

They look like the picture above. (Or wherever the mobile app decides to out it.)

In essence I've become an elephant, which has always been a life long dream of mine.

The thing with the nose only mask is that you have to keep your mouth closed. Otherwise the stream of air will go out your mouth. It sounds and feels really weird.

So now I'm gonna try to sleep tonight and not think about how I have this hose attached to my nose that is keeping my airway open so I don't stop breathing while I sleep.

Humans are complicated.

1 comment:

  1. This page summarizes methods used to find the best pressure on a constant-pressure CPAP machine. best cpap machine

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