I mentioned a few days ago that I changed my mask, hose, and harness on my CPAP machine. The immediate result was quieter operation and that’s what I was hoping for. The actual sleep results though…
I found the mask seal to be a little iffy, just like it was when I first started using the machine. I hadn’t had a problem with that for a couple of months, but there I was waking up 4-5 times a night again. I guess maybe the little plastic skirt thingies on the masks need some time to break in? Is that possible?
More concerning was the results I was getting off my AppleWatch. One of the whole points of getting the machine in the first place was to increase the amount of restful sleep I get each night. The SleepWatch app has, over the past five months or so, been showing that about 70% of my sleep is restful and the rest is light. On the couple of occasions that I have sleep with the watch on but without the machine that percentage has been around 50%. The first couple of nights after changing out the equipment had me at about 50%. Was that because I was waking up a lot? Could be. I don’t remember that happening in the beginning of all of this though.
Last night was much better. Last night was closer to pre-mask change. I took the mask off three times, but one of them was about a minute after I initially put it on, so that doesn’t count. I only woke up twice, and the first of those times I was back to sleep almost immediately. My restful sleep percentage was 76% and my heart rate dip was 25% (not that the heart rate dip was a problem).
I still don’t feel completely rested when I wake up in the morning, but last night was the first really positive result since I changed the equipment. I feel good about that. I feel so good in fact that I just went to the Lowes website and ordered a bunch of fluorescent light bulb tubes and a new snow shovel with a curved handle.
Even better, Jen made pancakes for breakfast and she just called us all to the table! Bonus!
Inside the Red Head's Head 