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I swear CPAP wouldn't get such a bad rep if the media would stop using pictures of men with obscenely large full face masks. The most commonly used CPAP mask is

• balls187 1y ago
  Do you wear a cpap? It sucks. I have an OA now. And it also sucks.
  • elric 1y ago
    I do. It's not the greatest, but you get used to it, and it makes sleep a hell of a lot better.
  • bryanlarsen 1y ago
    My CPAP provides 3 massive life changing benefits: - a proper night's sleep - moisture that ensures I don't wake up with a massive sinus headache that destroys my morning - letting my partner have a proper night's sleep Any one of the 3 would be worth the minor inconveniences of a CPAP.
    • TimPC 1y ago
      My CPAP does the first two. But generally if you get event the tiniest leak (and it's hard to stop all the leaks) it's very noisy for my partner. My masks leaks so little that I have between 0 and 1 events per hour but it's still annoyingly loud so my partner usually sleeps in our guest bedroom. If I could take a pill instead I would do so gladly. That being said my CPAP machine typically reduces events by 98% or so, so 56% just isn't going to cut it.
      • bryanlarsen 1y ago
        Luckily my partner likes to sleep with a large fan; the noise of the CPAP blends well with that. But you're right about the leak noise -- about once a month I do get swatted in the middle of the night to adjust my mask.
        • BurningFrog 1y ago
          There are cheap white noise machines that can cover the CPAP noise, without producing wind. Took me 1-2 nights to be used to it when I tried it.
    • aziaziazi 1y ago
      > letting my partner have a proper night's sleep I’m interested in this: how’s the CPAP noise perceived by the partners? I don’t snore and usually wake up quickly when doing the "apnea noise", stopping before waking her up. In the meantime I read that CPAP produce a a constant sound + an inconstant sound from the air coming in and out. She needs quietness to sleep and disturbing her sleep refrained me to try it out. Non trivial price is also a factor through, otherwise I would have tried it since a long time.
  • Diti 1y ago
    I do, a ResMed AirSense 11 with a ResMed Mirage FX. Wonderful sleep, wonderful comfort, and no need for the water supplement.
    • TMWNN 1y ago
      Yes, I don't think a lot of people realize that it's possible to run the AirSense 11 (I don't know about other models/brands) without distilled water. Resmed even sells "ResMed AirSense & AirCurve 11 Side Cover", which takes the place of the water tank.
      • sfink 1y ago
        My humidifier broke years ago and I haven't bothered to replace my unit. It gives me a little extra space to sneak a few more things onto flights by stuffing them in the CPAP bag where the humidifier would go. (I don't remember what model number I have, it's ancient, but the humidifier is easily detachable.)
      • russelg 1y ago
        They sell the same cover for the AirSense 10 as well, I just bought one.
  • christophilus 1y ago
    I wear one, and it’s great. I much prefer it to surgery or drugs.
  • BurningFrog 1y ago
    I've been using CPAP for 10 years, and it's pretty much the best thing that ever happened to me! The morning after my first real sleep in ~5 years was an unreal improvement. It felt like I was snatched from my death bed and back to normal. I use the nostril mask, and it doesn't really bother me. The full face mask experience is a lot worse. PS Technically, it blows!
    • bryanlarsen 1y ago
      I started with full face -- I thought I needed to because I was a mouth breather at night. But with the nostril mask I breathe through my nose.
      • elric 1y ago
        It's a common issue. If you breathe through your mouth at night, it's often because you can't get enough air because your airway is compromised. Once you add PAP, that problem goes away, and many people can revert to nasal breathing. There is an adjustment period, turbinates can swell up from the extra airflow, and it might be uncomfortable for a while. And some people have such awful septum deviations that they're breathing through a straw. But most people are fine.
        • bryanlarsen 1y ago
          I assumed that my need for CPAP was mostly because I'm old and overweight. But I've always been a mouth breather even when I wasn't overweight, so it seems it could be more than my weight issues.
          • elric 1y ago
            Untreated sleep apnea is often a cause of overweight. Being obese can contribute to sleep apnea, but unless you're extremely obese, it's rarely the cause.
      • garyclarke27 1y ago
        I tape my mouth shut and use the CPAP nostril mask, work great, I wake fully refreshed.
  • seattle_spring 1y ago
    I use one, and I love it. I'd probably continue to use it (or something like it) even if my apnea was cured. Breathing purified, warmed, perfectly humidified air piped directly to my nose is wonderful.
  • scuff3d 1y ago
    I've been using one for 4 years, and would never go back to sleeping without it. I know it's annoying at first, took me a couple months to really get use to, but if you put in the effort to find a mask that works for you, it's 100% worth it. I dealt with bad sleep for 15 years before getting one, and I'll never go back.
  • op00to 1y ago
    My cpap mask doesn’t suck at all. It blows. (Wokka wokka!) But it also makes sleep way more comfortable. I slept the entire night in my mask the first night, I was so worried about it and it turned out to be a non-issue. I love my mask.
• diggan 1y ago
  > That's ... unsettling. So you're reducing events at the cost of increased blood pressure and heart rate? That's not good. Ultimately, the question becomes "is higher quality of sleep with some tradeoffs more or less healthy overall, than not getting enough sleep at all?", as research keeps showing how important sleep is. So even if this increases heart rate and diastolic blood pressure, does it raise it more than a couple of decades of not being able to sleep would do?
  • hombre_fatal 1y ago
    Yeah, apnea already tends to come with cardiovascular risks. If this pill can give you a full night's rest with 90% of apnea's BP increase, it still seems like a bargain.
• deleted 1y ago
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• AStonesThrow 1y ago
  CPAP wouldn’t have such a bad rep if George Lucas hadn’t released Star Wars. Anyone under 60 who hears heavy mechanical breathing expects someone to get choked in the next 5 minutes.
• spanktheuser 1y ago
  >>Can these 22% be identified based on some criteria? Usually the preferred approach in cases like this is to trial the medication and revert back to the prior treatment plan if symptoms worsen. Obviously, this is only viable if the worst-case negative outcome is temporary, easily reversible, and not life threatening.
• scuff3d 1y ago
  Not even just that, full face masks aren't nearly as bad as they are made out to be. I use the Resmed AirTouch F20. Nasal masks are just too uncomfortable for me. And it's really not that big a deal, certainly not as ridiculous as the pictures I see on articles like this. As far as the meds go, I read this as something for someone who either can't or won't use a CPAP.CPAP would still be the go to treatment, and this would just fill in the gaps.
• wat10000 1y ago
  I’m almost totally unfamiliar with CPAP, and the mask you linked looks like something I’d never want to be stuck wearing every night. Now, I wouldn’t let appearances drive my use of a medical device, and I’d use it if a doctor said I should, but I doubt people’s opinions are being driven by the exact type of mask they see.
  • sfink 1y ago
    I hated, hated wearing my CPAP, even with nasal pillows instead of a facemask. It makes me feel inadequate as a human. Worse than eyeglasses. And for the first half year or so, it was awful to wear; I'd reach the morning and find I'd ripped it off in disgust somewhere in the night and didn't even remember it. But I willingly wear it every night, and a paltry 56% improvement or whatever it was won't tempt me in the least to give it up. Living without adequate oxygen and sleep is hell. I'm seriously convinced I have permanent brain damage from it. (Admittedly, that could just be age.) My point is that this is not something you wear because your doctor says you should. You wear it because life is shit without it.
• Llamamoe 1y ago
  The problem with CPAP is that 40% of patients don't tolerate it even for the 4h/night defined as treatment compliance, while most of the rest use it less than the full duration of the night, with studies demonstrating that treatment compliance depends on efficacy. And this is for traditional OSA in men - people with Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome(mostly identical mechanism as OSA, less oxygen desaturation, more arousals, slightly different symptoms) which is how SDB tends to manifest in women and younger people, the problem is way, way harder. In a community I used to hang out in, I'd say maybe 1 person in 10 actually benefitted from CPAP/BiPAP more than it hurt their sleep quality.
  • elric 1y ago
    I will keep beating this horse to death, but the vast majority of those who cannot tolerate CPAP are improperly titrated and/or have a mask that isn't right for them and/or are having leaks. Often all of the above. That 4 hours is just another symptom of a medical establishment that's not interested in treating patients, but is only interested in numbers. If you want maximum benefits from CPAP, you have to wear it all night every night. If you can't do that, there's a problem that needs to be addressed. It would be more accurate to say that 40% of people who are offered CPAP are not receiving proper guidance and followup. This is not their fault. This is not CPAP's fault. This is one of medicine's biggest failures. And yeah, UARS is an entirely different shitshow. It's finally starting to be recognized, hopefully that will lead to improvements for patients.
    • VectorLock 1y ago
      I don't know why you're so insistent that anybody who can't tolerate CPAP its a titration or fitment issue. I've talked to people who have loads of interaction with sleep doctors, mask fitment specialists, trying different CPAP/AutoPAP/BiPAP/auto-titration settings and I'm one of them. I'm glad medical science is pursuing other treatments that can help the 40% who can't tolerate CPAP and maybe help some of those who don't want to be tethered to a machine every night.
      • elric 1y ago
• EA-3167 1y ago
  These aren't drugs that I'd choose to take when a proven therapy like the use of a CPAP exist, the list of potential serious adverse reactions isn't trivial at all. Most amusingly insomnia is a known risk of atomoxetine. I understand that this might be a viable option for people who simply cannot tolerate CPAP therapy, have tried alternatives and found them lacking, and aren't surgical candidates... but I certainly hope it never becomes a first line treatment. My concern would also be that insurance companies will see this as a much cheaper option and try to force it on people who would otherwise tolerate CPAP therapy.
  • derefr 1y ago
    > Most amusingly insomnia is a known risk of atomoxetine. Given that atomoxetine is an sNRI, and norepinephrine modulates both alertness and muscle tone, I would bet dollars to doughnuts that what this treatment is doing is mostly helping people who have inadequate muscle tone in their pharynx at night due to inadequate NE levels, restore that muscle tone, and thereby keep their airways unblocked. These people aren't going to get insomnia from having their NE levels increased — because insomnia in sNRI use is a symptom of excess NE, while in these people, NE is just being brought up to a neurotypical level. (In other words, the same logic that explains why [correctly dosed] dopaminergic stimulants don't make people with ADHD manic — but applied to NE dysfunction rather than DA dysfunction.)
• sensanaty 1y ago
  CPAPs have a bad rep? I love mine (wearing it as I type this actually), and I'd say my girlfriend loves it more than I do since I no longer sound like I'm dying in my sleep and gasping for air every 20 seconds
• rlifer 1y ago
  The issue with nose pillow with Resmed or other CPAP is that I often rip them off from my face while sleeping, so I get to use CPAP only a couple of hours or even less. It may have to do with my stuffy nose, but that one is even harder to cure (yes, I use saline solutions to wash my nose, but it helps only so much).
  • DangitBobby 1y ago
    I had a nose only mask and ending up switching to one that covers mouth and nose for that reason. It worked for me.
• Suppafly 1y ago
  I wonder if everyone I know just has a bad apnea doctor or something. The full face masks are super common among the handful of people I personally know. You can always tell the people who use them because they have indents around their face either from the mask or the elastic straps that hold them on.