It can be hard to come up with something interesting to write about when holidays get in the way.
My cousin Mollie Becker was determined to convince me to write about my family’s Christmas Day trip to her home in suburban New Orleans.
She got her name in the column, which was one of her goals, so that will have to do. Because on Friday morning, the obvious topic presented itself when I entered the entirely new world of sleep apnea management. I received my CPAP mask and learned how to use it and keep it clean.
A quick review: In late 2023 I developed atrial fibrillation, commonly called a-fib, where your heart’s electricity gets out of rhythm and causes an erratic heartbeat. I’ve had three medical procedures to fix the rhythm, the latest one about three weeks ago.
Before the third one, I spent a couple of nights at the Diagnostic Sleep Lab in McComb, where they found the sleep apnea and said my breathing was stopping for at least 10 seconds 33 times per hour. That’s about once every two minutes.
The CPAP mask sends a steady stream of air into your nostrils to force you to keep breathing while you’re asleep. In addition to eliminating the risk that you won’t start breathing again while you’re asleep, the mask also has been shown to improve a-fib patients like me. Sign me up!
At Quipt Home Medical, formerly Thrift Home Care, I spent more than 90 minutes with respiratory therapist Denise Weatherspoon. Using this machine will be a huge change in my nightly routine, and some of its parts need to be cleaned regularly, but I am tired of a-fib procedures in the hospital, and if this thing can help control that, I’ll do it.
A side benefit is that one of my sisters-in-law has been using a CPAP mask for years. So we’ll have something new to talk about.
Denise has been introducing sleep apnea patients to CPAP devices for two decades, and she knows everything by heart. She even knew that CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure.
She said lots of people use the masks, which means some people reading this may have tips and tricks to share. Send them on.
Working from my recollections of the Denise tutorial (I’ll read the information papers over the weekend), this is what going to sleep now will involve:
• Put some distilled water in a small tray in the device. A heating element warms the water, which is blended with the air sent into my nose to prevent a dry mouth. Empty the tray each morning.
• The device sends air to the mask through a six-foot-long tube, which is long enough for me to roll over while sleeping.
• I chose a chin strap that fits over the top of my head to keep my mouth closed and prevent the CPAP air from leaking out.
• The mask’s two straps go on top of the chin strap. The mask is small, and has two air outlets, one that goes into each nostril. Denise said she could tell from looking at my face that my best outlet size is medium. I am so average.
• Assuming I get used to the chin strap and mask, the biggest thing will be cleaning responsibilities. The nostril outlets should be cleaned daily. The water tray and six-foot tube need to be cleaned weekly.
• And the big issue: Is this thing noisy? Fortunately for my sleeping wife, it’s not. If you hear air hissing, it means something with the tube has come loose, or the air outlets aren’t set snugly in your nostrils.
The huge unknown to all this is how quickly I will adjust to wearing a mask. One friend said it took him a while to get used to it, but he would never sleep without it now.
Another said her husband uses his occasionally. And her mother tried one a while back but didn’t like it, and doesn’t use hers at all.
I knew this was coming and had a few weeks to prepare for it. Now the trick is to deal with it. Let’s see what happens.
