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Anyone Lose Weight and Stop Using CPAP?
Many doctors will tell you that the key to disconnecting from CPAP for good is losing weight. My question is whether anyone has actually been able to safely stop using CPAP because of weight loss?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jay Polatnick on
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Unknown, Mary. I use a nasal mask an have no known leaks. I've had 3 sleep studies, 2 septoplasties, undergoing dental maxofacial expansion, and now started practicing Frolov device breathing exercises. I wake up tired everyday, but more or less manage. My progress is slow, but at least there's slow progress. I'm skeptical about people who push CPAP really fervently because there is always a financial interest at the end of the trail. The condition is real, but there seems to be no 'magic bullet'. My case is closer to UARS than Sleep Apnea ( < 5 AHI)
Namaste
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I'm not exactly "at peace" with my CPAP but, like you, I appreciate the fact that there IS a way for me to have a normal, restful night of sleep. For many years, I just thought everyone was as tired as I was. At some point, one of my ankles swelled and nothing could help it. My doctor finally decided I needed a sleep study. Thank God...my apnea was damaging my heart.
So I'm grateful, and I use it (almost) every night...but camping it out, the emergency sleep-over is out, little things that most people can do, I can't. Well, I can but then I never hear the end of the descriptions and imitations of me while asleep :o)
p.s. I've been sleeping with my love/hate relationship for many years now. It would be much easier without it but I can't go back to the life I had before. xo
ZolliStar said:Are you at peace with the fact that this is going to be lifelong for you, Debbie?
For whatever the reason -- maybe because I suffered so much for so long from the sleep apnea and I'm sooooo grateful that I'm better able to sleep now -- for whatever reason, I'm completely at peace with the fact that I'll sleep wearing a mask attached to a CPAP machine for the rest of my life.
Fortunately, I'm profoundly grateful for the diagnosis and -- especially -- for the fact that there is treatment. Thus, I devote zero time trying to figure out a way to stop using my CPAP. On the other hand, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how best to tweak everything so that everything works optimally for me.
Most say this is at least a six-month process. That has been my experience. I'm a tad over six months and while I now have things pretty well figured out, I realize that I'll probably always be tweaking as new masks, machines, etc. come out and also as I age and things change for me
Debbie Newton said:I am at a normal weight these days and thought I could stop using mine too. I spent the first night of a Mexican vacation in the same room as my BFF, without my CPAP!!!! YAY!!!! She told me I never made a peep. I thought I was "cured". Turns out I'm not, at all, and it's not ever going to go away....for ME, anyway.
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Permalink Reply by Lynn on
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Sometimes that's all there is. If your sleep apnea is due to poor innervation to the muscles in your soft palate and throat, there is no cure for that problem. Maybe many years from now, they'll figure out how to grow more efficient nerve stimulation but now, it isn't going to happen. Using cpap may seem horrible but it's a small price to pay for being able to live with good quality to life. I don't know about you but yawning my day away wasn't all that much fun. Now I even have energy to try to lose weight and exercise.
Jay Polatnick said:I've been attempting to use CPAP for over 1 year now and it has been largely a modest success at best. I have a Fully data capable Bi-Level Machine and if it's a 'cure' for you that's wonderful. I just don't see how one can claim 'cure' if your underlying condition still exists. Western Medicine continues with their symptomatic treatment of all disease and I find it to be incomplete at the least and troubling at the worst.
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Acupuncture has proven to be promising, although not a cure for some degrees of Sleep Apnea.
Sadly, the lobbying groups yell louder for CPAP machines and the adjunct surgeries that treat S.A.
I'm all about quality of life and if CPAP helps you then God bless ya', but I refuse to see it as a cure.
Medical science is always promising some sort of miracle on the horizon as long as our gov't issues grants for million of dollars more. More often than not, they don't come
http://www.healthcmi.com/index.php/acupuncturist-news-online/320-ac...
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I went off my machine about a month and had to go back on it because I had some really stressful sleep. I lost a lot of weight while using the machine this past year. Matter of fact, too much. But anyway, I went back on my machine last night because I think I had about four bad (and I mean BAD) episodes the night before last. I think I almost died in my sleep. I can said that stopping the machine when you lose weight may be dangerous. JMO
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Permalink Reply by ZolliStar on
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I remain of the opinion that weight is a factor in sleep apnea for some but almost certainly not for most.
All I can say is that I'm grateful that, for whatever reason, I am completely at peace with the fact/reality that barring anything really amazing that's developed in the future, I will sleep with a CPAP for the rest of my life.
My pre-diagnosis and CPAP life was awful, simply awful. I remain grateful that someone figured out something that allows most of us to sleep reasonably well. I'm likewise grateful that I'm one of the people who sleeps reasonably well with my machine.
Beverly Carter said:I went off my machine about a month and had to go back on it because I had some really stressful sleep. I lost a lot of weight while using the machine this past year. Matter of fact, too much. But anyway, I went back on my machine last night because I think I had about four bad (and I mean BAD) episodes the night before last. I think I almost died in my sleep. I can said that stopping the machine when you lose weight may be dangerous. JMO
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Jay, you can't cure OSA. It is a medical condition that occurs affecting each one of us differently. Think of it like epilepsy. You can't cure epilepsy only treat it with medication. Sleep apnea can be treated with air (a nice safe medication) but not cured.
By the way acupuncture has never cured anything only alleviate the symptoms.
Jay Polatnick said:Acupuncture has proven to be promising, although not a cure for some degrees of Sleep Apnea.
Sadly, the lobbying groups yell louder for CPAP machines and the adjunct surgeries that treat S.A.
I'm all about quality of life and if CPAP helps you then God bless ya', but I refuse to see it as a cure.
Medical science is always promising some sort of miracle on the horizon as long as our gov't issues grants for million of dollars more. More often than not, they don't come
http://www.healthcmi.com/index.php/acupuncturist-news-online/320-ac...
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Charles,
That's a very uninformed opinion on your part of acupuncture 'never curing anything'. Note, I've used to word 'promising'. I'm assuming you're an R.N. or M.D. to come up with such an opinion. Allopathic treatments haven't 'cured' anything since polio. So, I guess we do the best we can and make informed decisions.
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This is off the subject but...I saw a doctor, then a chiropractor, and was told the bursitis in my hip would never be any better (I hurt all the time and limped) unless I went for cortisone shots. Instead, I visited my friend, a reflexologist. It took only three visits and it is GONE. So I believe acupuncture can cure certain conditions...maybe not sleep apnea but it can't hurt!
Jay Polatnick said:Charles,
That's a very uninformed opinion on your part of acupuncture 'never curing anything'. Note, I've used to word 'promising'. I'm assuming you're an R.N. or M.D. to come up with such an opinion. Allopathic treatments haven't 'cured' anything since polio. So, I guess we do the best we can and make informed decisions.
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Likewise, I've had success for different conditions from alternative practitioners. I also went to doctors for nearly two decades looking for help for my extreme tiredness and sleepiness. I can honestly say that I never heard the words "sleep apnea" from a single one, including from any of the doctors at the first sleep disorder clinic I went to. (They said I had insomnia.)
Let's hope that there are no limitations placed on various practitioners. Some things that seem "way out" really work!
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Can long-term CPAP use distort your facial structures ?
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/643958.html
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On a more positive note, my health practicioner (Biologist, acupuncturist) introduced me to a device coming out of Japan. It's called a LipTrainer and none of your Sleep doctors or technicians are going to point you in this direction. Who knows ? They might even be sued and put out of business for doing so. God bless the A.M.A
http://www.liptrainer.com/ Research in Japan appears on the website.
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