Facehugger: 5th night

[mdlbear]

Slept much better last night: woke up, but went back to sleep. Turning the machine off for a few minutes seems to reset it so that I'm not fighting the mask leakage. Or something -- I'm not all that alert at two or three in the morning. Of course, the fact that I was falling-over sleepy must have helped.

Got up with the alarm at 6:30 feeling as though I could have used another hour's sleep, but basically OK. Need to see what my choices are for masks and pillows; I'll find out more at my appointment on Wednesday.

Comments

[lapislaz.livejournal.com]

I was told that it it would take me about 3 months to get to the point where I would get truly comfortable with the mask, and that was a pretty good estimate. If you get past these first few nights without waking up ripping the thing off in a claustrophobic panic, odds are you'll do pretty well with it. (Don't laugh, about half of the people who are prescribed CPAP can't use it because of this exact reaction.)

[donsimpson.livejournal.com]

According to one article I read, how refreshed you feel after sleep depends on what part of the sleep cycle you were in when woken. And those people who get by with almost no sleep supposedly do it by taking naps in which they fall asleep quickly, do one sleep cycle, and then wake up. They space their naps through the day, and can have total daily sleep times of four hours or under. Further research seems indicated.

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting to take this further - do you recall where the article was?

The alarm clock wakes one at random. It would be interesting if it was feasible to monitor the sleep cycle at home and make sure that one was awakened during the period where one feels most refreshed upon waking.

(Hey, I already have a face-hugger - what's a few electrodes?)

[mdlbear]

I've seen proposals for such a thing; it's tempting. If sleep cycle phase is reflected in your breathing you could probably get it off the CPAP, otherwise you could attach electrodes to the facehugger's straps that would probably work well enough.

[donsimpson.livejournal.com]

Don't recall, but I found some links to the subject that have a lot more "information" (that's in quotes, because there are some contradictory claims). Also, there is an alarm watch that claims to track your sleep cycle by your body movements, using an accelerometer....

http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/070587.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep#Patterns_and_disruptions

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

My machine has two different "start" buttons. One goes directly to full pressure, the other starts at a low pressure and slowly ramps up. Your description could match starting using the ramp-up feature.

I was one of the lucky ones, I had no significant problems learning to use a mask. My sister-in-law, however, was not able to use a CPAP.

[mdlbear]

I seem to be getting used to it.

[roaringmouse.livejournal.com]

Most machines have a "ramp" setting. Also you might to about getting a humidafier either attached to the cpap/bipap machine or a separate system. I find that with my sinsus, I need the humidity or I will get nose bleeds.