Day 47 - Making progress again?
Call me superstitious, but I hate to say I'm making progress since the next thing that seems to happen is a new crisis. I'm going out on a limb here though because I think I've found a crucial problem AND I think I have a solution.
I was a little bored a few days ago so I thought I'd play around with eliminating background noise in my nap recordings (okay, so I was a little bored and overly obsessive...). I discovered something interesting during my occasional CPAP sleep: I had my mouth open for a while. It was hard to tell from the video and audio exactly how long, so I started playing around.
In case I haven't explained this before, most CPAP masks fit over or in your nose and do not cover your mouth. There are some that cover both your nose and mouth but I have a beard and I was told that they don't work very well with facial hair (hopefully that's no longer the case, but that's a different topic). So both of my masks only push air in through my nose.
To get an idea what that's like, imagine hooking up the exhaust of a vacuum cleaner (albeit a very small one) to something that you wear over your nose. Air is constantly being forced in your nose to keep your throat from closing and to keep you breathing properly. It's quite something to get used to sleeping with.
Anyway, now imagine that you have this thing on your nose and you open your mouth. Since everything in your throat is connected, the air that is being forced in your nose now starts coming out of your mouth rather than going down your throat to keep it open. This essentially negates the effect of the CPAP machine since the air goes down your nose and immediately out your mouth and doesn't help you keep breathing. Ack.
To make matters worse, the air escaping from your mouth creates a bit of a vacuum inside your mouth sucking the air out of your lungs and making it more difficult than usual to breathe. And that's when you're AWAKE.
So, that's why noticing my mouth open is a big deal. It's a bit of a double-whammy.
From the 6 months that I tried to make the CPAP work for me a couple years ago, I knew this mouth thing was a problem for me. I own a strap that goes around my head to hold my chin in place which in theory should keep my mouth closed. Unfortunately I was wearing said strap at the time, so it obviously wasn't terribly effective. This led me down the road of trying a few different things to keep my mouth closed while using the CPAP machine.
I just took a nap an hour ago where it looks like I successfully managed to breathe through my nose for the entire nap. It's evident in several spots that I'm TRYING to breathe through my mouth but eventually I give up and use my nose again. I even had about 15 minutes of REM sleep during that nap.
If I've licked the CPAP problem that means I'll get more consistently good naps and I may even be able to sleep a bit longer (an hour or 2) without so many problems.
One nap under my belt doesn't guarantee anything, but I'm very hopeful :-)
I was a little bored a few days ago so I thought I'd play around with eliminating background noise in my nap recordings (okay, so I was a little bored and overly obsessive...). I discovered something interesting during my occasional CPAP sleep: I had my mouth open for a while. It was hard to tell from the video and audio exactly how long, so I started playing around.
In case I haven't explained this before, most CPAP masks fit over or in your nose and do not cover your mouth. There are some that cover both your nose and mouth but I have a beard and I was told that they don't work very well with facial hair (hopefully that's no longer the case, but that's a different topic). So both of my masks only push air in through my nose.
To get an idea what that's like, imagine hooking up the exhaust of a vacuum cleaner (albeit a very small one) to something that you wear over your nose. Air is constantly being forced in your nose to keep your throat from closing and to keep you breathing properly. It's quite something to get used to sleeping with.
Anyway, now imagine that you have this thing on your nose and you open your mouth. Since everything in your throat is connected, the air that is being forced in your nose now starts coming out of your mouth rather than going down your throat to keep it open. This essentially negates the effect of the CPAP machine since the air goes down your nose and immediately out your mouth and doesn't help you keep breathing. Ack.
To make matters worse, the air escaping from your mouth creates a bit of a vacuum inside your mouth sucking the air out of your lungs and making it more difficult than usual to breathe. And that's when you're AWAKE.
So, that's why noticing my mouth open is a big deal. It's a bit of a double-whammy.
From the 6 months that I tried to make the CPAP work for me a couple years ago, I knew this mouth thing was a problem for me. I own a strap that goes around my head to hold my chin in place which in theory should keep my mouth closed. Unfortunately I was wearing said strap at the time, so it obviously wasn't terribly effective. This led me down the road of trying a few different things to keep my mouth closed while using the CPAP machine.
I just took a nap an hour ago where it looks like I successfully managed to breathe through my nose for the entire nap. It's evident in several spots that I'm TRYING to breathe through my mouth but eventually I give up and use my nose again. I even had about 15 minutes of REM sleep during that nap.
If I've licked the CPAP problem that means I'll get more consistently good naps and I may even be able to sleep a bit longer (an hour or 2) without so many problems.
One nap under my belt doesn't guarantee anything, but I'm very hopeful :-)
posted by Jeremy | 12:44:00 AM
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