going to bed for the night consistently

@SquarePegGuy - I wish it would have started the night before. I have to go to church in the morning and I know I am going to be super tired.

I haven't been sleeping that well. I get up around 3 or 4am. Apparently, I am in a really deep sleep where my mouth is hanging open and the masks slips off above my chin. Do you guys' experience this? Well, it wakes me up and I can't go back to sleep.

So basically, I have been up since 4am and I am losing an hour tonight.

The good news is, I will be able to drive later at night now.

No, it doesn't happen to me that the mask slips off. But my mask is probably too tight because in the morning there are crevices on my nose from the mask. In an hour or two, they go away.

Today has been a fantastic day for me. Last night I got 7 hrs 13 mins of net sleep. This was from going to bed at 11:33 PM to finally getting up at 8:33 AM. I initially got up at 7AM with my daily alarm, but later at 7:30 went back to bed. And so many good things happened today, including an important conversation with the T, and all thanks to getting enough sleep.

11:38 PM good night. Tomorrow I need to accomplish a whole lot. I better go to bed right now.

@LadyShadow, this makes me think you have a full face mask: "...my mouth is hanging open and the masks slips off above my chin"

Would you be able to use a chin strap with your mask? It should keep your mouth closed.

I use a nasal pillow mask; before that I used a nasal mask. So, no, I've never had the this problem.

But I do seem to have a problem with my mouth open, and the positive pressure escapes out my mouth, which makes the therapy less effective.

The varieties of masks are described here:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-...s/art-20546828

I'm yawning right now, every 15 seconds or so. It's only 6pm in my time zone, yet I could probably go to sleep now and not wake up for at least 10 to 12 hours.

Oh that is right. Mine is not a full face mask. Mine is a nasal pillow.

@Tart Cherry Jam - so glad you got a really good sleep! I slept good last night, but I have residual drowsiness during the day which had me yawning in church this morning and taking a long nap at my parent's house today.

@SquarePegGuy the reason I have the full-face mask is because my nose is usually stuffed so the doctor had recommended it so I can breathe through my mouth. Thanks for the link though, I will research it further and let my doctor know next time I see her. I don't have chin straps; the pillow sits right on my full face.

Hopefully, I get some good sleep tonight, watching the Oscars for the first time in years - it used to be my yearly tradition since I was a kid but since I was in jail, rehab, and sober living I never could watch it. So happy I am in my own house, I can watch whatever I want!

Here's to good sleep tonight!

I too am watching the Oscar’s. The pharmacy messed up and revived an only script instead on contracting my pdoc. So I have 45 instead of 30 of ambien. That means once a week for a while I can take two and get the deep sleep! So I put the extra pill in Saturdays tiny box. Any day I have something important to get up for I have it. I’m thinking I want to take it Thursday night as I have an eye appointment Friday I want to be well rested for.

@Nammu I actually enjoyed this Oscars. Glad it was the first one I saw in a long time. Kinda cool you got those extra pills for a better night's sleep.

Hopefully, I get some good sleep too.

Yes, the Oscar’s were good this year and ended on time too! A miracle.

Hope you get a good nights sleep.

I could not use the CPAP at all when it was first prescribed to me in 2021. I was sent to an ENT doctor who performed a surgery, fixing three issues with my nose and surrounding areas. The surgery itself was under general anesthesia so I did not feel anything, but the recovery after it for a week was tough. I took a medical leave from work and just stayed home in misery. After a week, the ENT surgeon removed the post-op stuff he had left in my nose and I started breathing easily like never before and then quickly learned how to use the CPAP machine, with the nasal pillow. The surgery was nothing short of a miracle. And since then, the only time I became congested is now in early 2024 with this bronchitis. From the surgery in Aug 2021 till this bronchitis now, 2.5 years elapsed with no congestion. Even when i had COVID in Aug 2022, I was not congested.

If you are congested, I strongly, mostly strongly recommend that you get a referral to an ENT!

10:24 PM good night!

I got up very early this morning. Later, I took a nap. Just a short nap, waking up before the alarm. And I was super productive but no, not hypomanic. Just calmly and systematically executing on my various todos. Really happy about that.

Tomorrow will be a full day, too, so I better fall asleep fast now.

Agree. Surgery might not be necessary, though. For example, I used to get stuffed up from a "trifecta" of seasonal allergies, food intolerances and indoor pollutants. With extra help from a Naturopathic Doctor, I suffered less after I "cleaned up my diet," and then I added a steroid nasal inhaler to reduce the effect from the seasonal allergens. As well, saline spray is good to help drainage.

I had surgery to my sinuses in 1989 or 1990. He showed me a list of all the... ...that he removed. The surgery also included making "a window" to improve drainage.

I learned a lot from that experience, including that I had apnea from the pain med (Tylenol with Codeine), that the surgeon was scamming the insurance company, and that mom was a good ally in my recovery

Oh, saline, yes, of course. And here is the saline gel recommended by my ENT. I use it daily, on Amazon Subscribe and Save, and it works great:

Ayr saline gel on Amazon.com

Amazing! My mom, by contrast, was terrified when a sinus surgery was recommended to me in or around 1996. She would scream in the phone from another continent that the surgery could disfigure my face. She was that afraid. But the reason I did not do the surgery back then was because the recovery was supposed to be very difficult and I lived alone with a toddler son. I just could not imagine how I would manage.

it is possible that there have been advances in this surgery since then (septoplasty, turbinate surgery, sinus surgery): when I had the surgery in 2021, the recovery was not as nearly as awful as it seemed in the mid-1990s from how it had been described to me back then.

And yes, for allergies, the surgery is not so useful. I obtained a second opinion from an allergist back then and he explained that to me. treating allergies is the way to go.

Oura showed that I slept 5.5 hours last night, getting up at 6. It somehow did not pick up that later, after 7AM, I went back to bed and slept more, until about 8:30 AM. After that, I had a fully productive and wonderful day without ever feeling sleepy or tired. In the evening I did an intense workout at Orangetheory fitness, sweat and all.

Going to bed now. 11:45 PM. Later than I planned, but tomorrow morning I have no meetings and will be able to catch up on sleep.

Hope tomorrow will be a good day, too. I will have so much to do at work and then when I come home in the evening, I will cook for the week ahead and do a couple more chores, such as finally removing bird droppings from one of my car's windows. It keeps raining over here, but the rain does not remove bird droppings–I have to do that.

I have changed my signature. It appears that I do not have true narcolepsy. My worsened sleep quality and increased sleep need were apparently caused by iron deficiency anemia. The sleep psychologist researched this issue and said it is possible. I then looked at my records of blood donations and indeed when I skipped donations last year, I improved a lot, sleeping better and needing less sleep. So for now blood donations are on pause.

This morning, I got up with the daily 7AM alarm, did my oral hygiene and ALL my morning stretches, had 2 lattes, worked, and then went back for a nap. I was in bed from about 9:20AM till 10:30AM, waking up without an alarm. Oura, as yesterday, did not register that nap.

After that I had a great day and accomplished a lot. I am going to bed late again tonight, at 11:45 PM (that I simply could not help this evening), but I will have time to catch on sleep tomorrow morning as my first meeting is not until 10PM.

Good night!

It's possible that back in her day, the surgeon would perform an external technique, which I think involved inserting a needle through the cheekbone or some such barbaric method. Thank goodness that was not the case!

AHI and leak rate are higher than mine. Can anything be done about central apnea? Also, does The Ring report blood oxygenation? I sent you a PM too

Yes, thank goodness now we have modern surgery methods!!

Thanks. The ring reports blood oxygenation. Mine is usually pretty good. Say, today, even though the leaking was so bad that even the machine itself gave me a red unhappy face, the oxygenation was 98%. And even when I sleep without the mask at all, the oxygenation is still 96-98%. So I do not know whether to believe the Oura ring.

Last night, I must have forgotten to take my nighttime Seroquel. I listened to an audiobook for a long time and then, not sleep at all, I realized that I must have forgotten the pills. It was already 1:30 AM. When it is that late, I take Lybalvi (Zyprexa+) and not even try Seroquel because Lybalvi is more reliable. I took it (the low dose of 5 mg) and started another familiar audiobook. I fell asleep almost instantly, at the very beginning of the story, and slept through until 6AM when I got up to pee and was not sleepy. But I had had only 4 hours of sleep. Then I took a little nap. Then was up, spent an hour in a work meeting. Then had a another nap. Ultimately I took three short separate naps. In the afternoon, was fine, productive, and exercised a lot. Soon will go to bed and will not forget my Seroquel tonight. I will now take Seroquel at the same time with pouring distilled water into the humidifier chamber. That will help me remember the pills.

10:55 PM good night

Had the weirdest night and then day. Ended up with a total of 11 hours of net sleep. Had a headache. It went away. Maybe I was simply a little sick.

10:50 pm good night

Hey guys, so good seeing you and reading about you.

My sleep has been really good lately, despite my ex ending up arrested, back in the hospital and now missing again. It has been so hard on his mom, and me, having to deal with all this. I know he's my ex and in a different state, but it's so hard watching someone you love to destroy their life. He is insistent on hurting himself and there is nothing anyone can do.

But I have to say, I've been going to bed around 11pm and waking up at 7am. I also looked into an ENT, maybe they can help with all the congestion. I also tightened the face mask, so it hasn't been slipping either.