About two hours ago I woke up from a nap for the first time using an at-home BIPAP machine. I hated it so, so much. I felt like it took me forever to fall asleep; my face felt claustrophobic; and a little bit of air was leaking out of the side of my mask near my mouth; and I hate the breathing rhythm the mask forced me into, which is not how I naturally breathe at all.

Yet somehow, time passed, and we think I got maybe an hour and a half of sleep on it. Miracle!

This is going to be the rest of my life, I think, and I’m not looking forward to it. I had a sleep study done fairly recently and they found that I had 111 apneas an hour (severe sleep apnea starts at 30) and my oxygen levels dropped to 75%. I didn’t react well enough to a regular CPAP so it’s the BIPAP for me!

When I heard how bad my numbers were, my family and I were like…”how did I not die?” Because untreated sleep apnea can lead to many, many problems:

• Type 2 diabetes
• stroke
• heart attack
• shortened lifespan

That’s not including the current problems sleep apnea can cause. For me, the biggest ones besides loud snoring and gasping at night has to be hypersomnia and fatigue. I sleep about 12 hours a day and then nap for an additional 2-4 hours…and never feel like I have energy.

So, everyone is optimistic that the BIPAP machine will be the best thing for me, ever, and that my life will change once I have actual oxygen in my body again when I sleep.

I just wish my experience on the machine wasn’t so awful. I hope to get used to it soon. I have to put it back on tonight and we’ll see if I can get like eight hours out of it.

Readers, any of you have experience with this? Any advice?