I dug my old ResMed AirCurve 10 VAuto out of the closet and dusted it off hoping to raise my BrPM at night. Those hopes were mostly shattered after a string of messages with Stanford nurse T revealed that I needed a machine with “backup rate” in order for that to be the case.
By then things were set up and ready to go, so I decided to test out the CPAP nonetheless.
Nurse T was right; using the CPAP machine did not change my BrPM: Monday w/o = 11.6, Tuesday w/o = 12.0, Wednesday w/CPAP = 11.5, Thursday w/CPAP = 10.6, Friday w/CPAP = 11.2. It also made lying in bed more uncomfortable, especially when getting up in the middle of the night. (’Tis a burden to lift my weak shoulders and put the mask on and off.)
The aforementioned hassles don’t seriously affect my sleep so I’ve continued to use the CPAP for now. Several sleep studies have shown that CPAP is helpful even for people (like me) with mild sleep apnea. Plus, the magical 3-month seizure-free period before my 2015 shoulder surgery gives hope that CPAP could help with nighttime epilepsy, even if I can’t provide a solid reason why.
PS: haven’t settled on a mask; been switching between the ResMed N30i and the DreamWear FFM
