Sleeping and CPAP

What has been everyone's experience with sleeping and sleep apnea?  My sleep has not been good for years, even to the point of an Ambien addiction.  i am now off but am still chronically stuffy and wake up early (4 am ish) every morning . . . I thought everything would improve with weight loss but  nothing is really different.  I am still apneic - finally getting a auto CPAP tomorrow - hopefully that will help.

Has anyone gotten off your CPAP?  How long did it take?  Did your sleep ever get back to normal?  Can you sleep in?

Thanks, Meg

I'm off mine. Ok, so I was never really on it. I hated the thing. I will admit I had a good night sleep with it. I am sleeping now like I did when I used it. I get up on my own, I fall asleep fast, and I dream. It has just been in the past couple of months that I have been like this.

Autopap ought to really help. Remember, just like high blood pressure, there are skinny people who have sleep apnea. I am only half way to goal, and I still need my CPAP, but I do sleep a lot better. Have to really watch my allergy meds and keep my pollen filter changed out at least monthly if not every 3 weeks. In tree pollen season - which is now - I still get stuffy.

 I have been using CPAP for about 6 years now.
I use it every night and I sleep well. 
For years I played around with masks looking for the most comfortable one. I wanted to be able to use the nasal pillow one and did but it was really not doing the job I needed done.
My mouth drops open when I sleep so I would have to wear a chinstrap which mostly was not helpful.
Now I use a fullface mask and its fine.

I hope I will be able to get off CPAP post wgt loss.

j

 I have been on CPAP for 6 years or so too.  I had really hoped after 100 lbs lost that I might sleep better.  I guess I need to lose some more weight, though I may be apneic even thin as many members of my family are . . . but they are also obese . . . 

I got my new auto CPAP today with a nasal pillow - always used a nasal mas****il now.  It was quite a battle as they wanted me to do another sleep study first but I would rather wait until I lose all the weight to be tortured again!

 You know its about the tongue and how you lose control of it when you sleep and it falls back and blocks or semi blocks the airway.
the wind blowing in your nose is supposed to bypass that issue.
do we have fat tongues?

 I think it could be tongue or other redundant tissues in the back of the mouth and larynx . . . 

 I'll search PubMed tonight to see if anyone has ever studied tongue size . . .