Jun 29.2

 Today I feel absolutely awful.

My sleep has been wrecked by the CPAP.

After getting a few hours sleep and my nose clearing up - I would guess it stayed blocked up for around 4 hours or so - I gave the CPAP another go.

This time it was even worse. Breathing out against it was hard - felt like I was suffocating. Not good.

After two minutes of using it I couldn't do it. My breathing was getting faster and worse. I started getting panic blips where I can't breathe properly.

Oh boy.

Ok.

Now the unforeseen knock on effects.

My mood has gone through the floor. My anxiety has gone through the ceiling. I am now struggling to keep a lid on it and not go fully nuts.

I am sketchy. I would guess this is a few things.

1. I feel even worse. My mood has gone down because of how shit I feel.
2. I got very little sleep and am tired as all hell. Which means my mood is wobbly.
3. Far from being a thing that might help, so far the CPAP is a thing that is just adding to the problems. I did not expect this. I should have expected this. But I didn't.
4. I am aware I have a breathing problem overnight and the prospect of not being able to do much about it and my iffy mood has caused the anxiety demons to start running amok.

On Thursday I took a very short nap before I went for a swim. 20 minutes. I woke up three times gasping for air each time. Oh. Not great. It's ok I thought. I'm on this. CPAP coming.

I have done some more background reading and found that my issues are again, not uncommon. Some people struggle with feeling like they are suffocating. Can be air pressure. Mask. You name it. People suggest knocking yourself out chemically ( yikes ), or fiddling with settings. Plenty of people get irritated noses, blockages, sore throats.

Even more background reading. Not uncommon for panic attacks with the things. Struggling to not feel like you're suffocating. Etc, etc. Apparently. I am "kinda normal". There is a bunch of advice for getting used to the mask before sleep, so, it seems in hindsight I have not done enough homework, rushed into sleeping with it, and had an absolute car crash with it.

This is I guess the other side of CPAP malarkey. If you're lucky, or have it down pat, all good. If you're not. You're anything from a bit fucked to very fucked.

Everything has got overwhelming for me again. It's not just this I am dealing with.

Very sketchy. I am in danger of going properly nuts.

Sigh.

Back on the mental meds. I think I need to stick with them now for a while.

Not good. Not good at all. I need to try and get some sleep of any kind in. 

On the plus side, the charity help does say that eventually you should get the hang of it, and there are hundreds of cases where the same thing happens.

Uh huh.

I had not anticipated this was going to be hard.

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