Speaking of sleep...

I don't understand what's going on.  I go to bed and don't "really" sleep well.  Not that I am awake, but not sleeping sound.  My CPAP is probably too high, but I still snore too loud to turn it off.  I'm 3 months post and have lost about 85 pounds.  Part of the problem is that I am just not tired.  I used to go to bed around 10:00.  Now I can stay up until midnight or longer, lay down and still not fall into a deep sleep for hours.  Weird though, I'm not really tired the next day. Any ideas? CB

I'm about 3.5 months out and experiencing some of those same problems. Part of the reason I'm not sleeping well is gas. I've had to get up once during the night to **** every since I got into my fourties, but now the bladder problem seems a little more painful and I think it's because there's a significant build up of gas that's putting pressure on it. Some nights I walk around the house for about 5 minutes or so after I get through ******g just to try and work some gas into the launch zone. I used to be able to fart as easy as I breathed, but now I kinda have to work them into position. And evidently I never fart while I'm asleep anymore. Hell, I used to wake myself up from the concussion.

CB, Had a bunch of info around this topic..... Posted above. It could be that your sleep is of higher quality now Even in shorter Doses. Or well could be a minor bit of insomnia... Or combination of the two... *see post above... Best Wishes- Dx

Charlie, I had severe apnea & was at 18" setting before my surgery.  I'm down 90 pounds and definitely sleeping better.  I had to turn my pressure down.  I've set it back to 12" and I'm sleeping better.  I get conflicting information when to be retested.   My pcp said six months, my wls doctor said wait a year.  I'm guilty of self medicating my pressure.  I guess I've been using a cpap for so long I have a little bit of a feel & memory for my pressure setting.   What's your exercise routine?  Could you workout harder and/or longer to make yourself more tired?  Like you, I'm not tired most days.  My biggest problem is tightness in the low back that sometimes wakes me in the early morning, 4am or so. Are you waking up during the night or do you just sense you're not in a deep sleep?  I sometimes feel semi-aware and know I'm not fully asleep.

Can I back the pressure down myself?  How?

It depends on your CPAP machine.  It's supposedly super-seekrit Rx-only info that only the high-priestesses, the Respiratory Therapists, are supposed to know, so they can pay you a house call, change the pressure settings to the new ones prescribed by your doctor, and then bill your insurance company for $200+ for 10 minutes of their time.  The Rx-only settings and how to change them are not documented in any material available to patients.  Your user's manual would only list the "uninteresting" settings which you're able to change.  Usually, a respiratory therapist has to hold down an secret combination of buttons after the machine powers up (or insert a special card or whatever) to enable a special set of menus that change pressure and other Rx-only settings. IMHO, these guys are worse than my cable company when it comes to making house calls; I missed my last Sleep MD appointment because the resp. ther. took two weeks to come out to my house to make the changes.   And this was the second visit, since the first resp. ther. wasn't familiar with my machine and screwed the settings up.  I'd much rather prefer to make the change myself, or if that wasn't possible,  just carry the machine into a depot where they can change the settings. /Steve

As usual, the information, suggestions and further questions prove once again this is the best list in the world!

Hey, After I lost about my first 50 pounds, my CPAP was giving me too much pressure.  I did not want to bring the tech in and then have him refuse to change the settings because they didn't come from the doctor, and I did not want to pay for all of this. According to what I've read here and other places, a reduction in weight can bring up our O2 levels about 20% by itself, so I decided to start by lowering my settings by 20% to compensate and be more comfortable. I did a Google search and within a few minutes had written instructions on how to change the settings on most brands of machines by yourself.  It was very easy to get into the settings area of the machine, and the changes were very straight forward.  My settings were 19/16 and I lowered them to 16/13 and even changed the ramp setting to a little longer. Short story is that my sleep has been much better.  I will test the settings out for a few weeks and then fine tune if I have to.  The best part is the machine is not waking me up because it is blowing too hard.  I will go for a sleep study when my weight levels out, but like most of us, I am doctored out and just wanted to avoid the visits and overnight study at this time. Lou