Treating obstructive sleep apnea

I ended up having to do an in-lab sleep study for insurance reasons, and finally got the results back. I tested positive for mild OSA, and they want another sleep study for CPAP titration. Kinda curious how the test would’ve turned out if I had it done while I weighed +210 last fall, because I would actually wake up out of breath.

I’m at the lowest I’ve weighed in a long time (185lb vs 200-210 last year), so it seems to me that if I’m getting ready to gain weight again, that my air pressure needs would change. Also, it seems like you would need different air pressure if you are stuffy from allergies, or are side sleeping vs back sleeping. Question, is a CPAP, APAP, or BiPAP machine better to get?

Most people get CPAPs, and have intermittent follow-up with sleep clinics for monitoring over time.

APAPs automatically titrate in real-time based on pressure needs.

Sounds like APAP is the way to go if I want to avoid dealing with “sleep” clinics in the future. Guess I’ll find out what insurance covers in the near future.

I would suggest discussing this in more detail with your doctor. If you have mild OSA, depending on where you fall, sometimes it’s better not to treat it. It all depends on the person, and their tolerance to the intervention. Btw, if you do a CPAP titration, there should be no need for APAP. The whole point of the titration is to determine the minimum setting to alleviate the sleep apnea issue. Again, an APAP can actually cause more sleep disturbance, just because it is constantly changing the pressure throughout the night. A BiPAP is only needed in more sever circumstances.

From my own personal experience, I have mild OSA. Basically just beyond the diagnosis criteria. I did try CPAP for a while. It helped at first, probably placebo. Then I didn’t really notice much of a difference. After seeking a second opinion, the new sleep doc said, “There is no good treatment options for people with mild OSA. Any intervention that improves the OSA typically results in just as much sleep disturbance as the OSA itself.” I decided to stop the use of the CPAP. I’ve noticed no difference. However, I don’t have to where a mask everynight anymore. This is why I would suggest you discuss in more detail with your doctor about all of these questions.

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Yep, agreed.

I have pretty mild OSA (my AHI was above the cutoff, but it was pretty much all hypopneas, not apneas).

been using CPAP for over a year and love it. I never knew it was possible to just get up in the morning. I thought I was just not a morning person and doomed to hit snooze 8 times and be late to work every day.

aside from that, my snoring is now minimal and my wife had returned to our bedroom, which is a big plus!

and statistically, OSA is a modifiable risk factor for heart attack and stroke, so it’s worth trying to treat if you have it.

so I would recommend giving the CPAP a try. Give yourself some time to get used to it before you decide if it’s worth the hassle. If it improves your sleep, it will improve your life and training.

Yeah, my snoring was getting really bad last year when I weighed 30lb more. At this point, not sure if it’s better to weigh less and be weak (182lb @6’1") and have mild OSA, or weigh more (200lb) and use CPAP to treat OSA. Only one way to find out I guess.

I have mild to moderate OSA (I think the sleep study indicated something like 5 events per hour on the average) and have been using CPAP for several years. It usually keeps me down to 1-2 events per hour. It’s never really made me feel more rested, turned me into a morning person, or anything like that. I have paroxysmic afib though, and I experienced a dramatic reduction in the frequency of the afib soon after I started using CPAP. To me, that alone was easily worth the trouble and expense.