The first night with a CPAP machine

I’ve had sleep apnea for a number of years now, but I’ve not done anything about it, until I experienced a panic attack and the doctors said I need to get my sleep apnea in check. Initially, I resisted doing a sleep test because I was apprehensive about spending the night at the hospital. A friend later told me there’s a home kit and that I didn’t have to do the test at the hospital.

I went through the process of requesting a sleep test, which revealed that I had severe obstructive sleep apnea. This was followed by a longer processed of trying to get an appointment with a doctor of respiratory issues (I forgot what they’re called and I’ll probably forget the name as soon as I publish this post 😂).

I got prescribed a CPAP machine to use at night and I finally received the device yesterday. I’ve been told by a number of people that the experience will be bad for the first 2 weeks or so and the first night was bad, but also not as bad as I thought it would be. Coffee may have played a part in making it difficult for me to fall asleep, but it took me about half an hour to sleep. About 3 hours later there was an opening around the mask, which meant the suction wasn’t working properly. This was annoying as hell and I couldn’t fix it while being half asleep, so I continued to sleep without the mask on. But I ended up sleeping for about 4 and half hours, which made me super-tired for the rest of the day.

I ended up napping in the afternoon and sleeping for most of the evening, which means my sleep tonight will likely be messed up. The good thing is that I didn’t have coffee tonight. I’m hoping this will fix my sleep a bit. But it’s almost 2AM right now. I’m going to expect a few more difficult nights, but with small adjustments and fixes, hopefully my sleep will be in a much better condition.

I MIGHT try to skip napping tomorrow, but that depends on how sleepy I get. Maybe a shorter nap would be more realistic.

OK, I should probably get ready for bed!