I have found that a down pillow or a "just like down" pillow works the best. Squishy and soft and stays in position and doesn't push back against my mask. I have bought several -- Costco and Target. The real down pillows ARE expensive. But you only need one good pillow, then that'll be it for years to come.

Sorry -- double post

Aarondawg,

It sounds like we are on an almost parallel journey through starting cpap.  I am having allergy tests tomorrow and am going to my doctor on Thursday to try to see if we can figure out why I am having chest pains even though the echocardiogram was ok.  I am also having all sorts of problems with burping after every meal that I have never had before.  Saturday to Sunday night was one of my worst so far in this process.  I couldn't sleep and was having burning in my chest that extended out to my lower ribs.  I couldn't take any allergy medicine or tylenol PM because for the allergy appointment on Tuesday I can't have any antihistimines in my system.  I have been having acid reflux problems worse than ever before also.  I am almost convinced I am having gall bladder problems.  That and I think some of this is anxiety related.  My job is so boring that I have nothing to do but sit and think about stuff which allows me to get myself all wired up.  Even worse is that I will get on the internet and start looking up symptoms and the next thing I know I am freaking out about some disease I think I have.  I would get a new job if I thought somebody in this area would pay me as much but I got pretty lucky with this job and it pays more than the average in this area.  I am trying to be better about not looking stuff up on the internet.  

I did sleep well last night though so that is good.  I even managed to roll over on my side and stomach and sleep for a while.  It is just so frustrating that every time I start to think I am over the hump on all this stuff I will have a terrible night where I lay there trying to decide whether or not I should be going to the emergency room.  I am going to talk to my doctor on Thursday about getting an anxiety medication that I can take every day instead of the xanax only after I am already having problems.  She doesn't want to refill the xanax and I only have one of them left.  

My blood pressure doesn't seem to be too terrible unless I am having an anxiety moment.  It is still almost always above 120/80 but the doctor doesn't seem too concerned about increasing my dose or changing anything.  Overall, I am having more and more good days with interjections of terrible days.  I wish that my main problem when I had a bad night was just being tired but it seems like when I have a bad night my whole body freaks out on me.

Jessy,

I switched back to my old pillow that didn't work with my first mask's headgear and it worked much better with my current mask.  It is a japanese style pillow that is filled with buckwheat hulls.  I know it sounds weird but once you get used to it it is good.  You will also never get "hot head" with it.  

dae3dae3 wrote:

Aarondawg,

It sounds like we are on an almost parallel journey through starting cpap.  I am having allergy tests tomorrow and am going to my doctor on Thursday to try to see if we can figure out why I am having chest pains even though the echocardiogram was ok.  I am also having all sorts of problems with burping after every meal that I have never had before.  Saturday to Sunday night was one of my worst so far in this process.  I couldn't sleep and was having burning in my chest that extended out to my lower ribs.  I couldn't take any allergy medicine or tylenol PM because for the allergy appointment on Tuesday I can't have any antihistimines in my system.  I have been having acid reflux problems worse than ever before also.  I am almost convinced I am having gall bladder problems.  That and I think some of this is anxiety related.  My job is so boring that I have nothing to do but sit and think about stuff which allows me to get myself all wired up.  Even worse is that I will get on the internet and start looking up symptoms and the next thing I know I am freaking out about some disease I think I have.  I would get a new job if I thought somebody in this area would pay me as much but I got pretty lucky with this job and it pays more than the average in this area.  I am trying to be better about not looking stuff up on the internet.  

I did sleep well last night though so that is good.  I even managed to roll over on my side and stomach and sleep for a while.  It is just so frustrating that every time I start to think I am over the hump on all this stuff I will have a terrible night where I lay there trying to decide whether or not I should be going to the emergency room.  I am going to talk to my doctor on Thursday about getting an anxiety medication that I can take every day instead of the xanax only after I am already having problems.  She doesn't want to refill the xanax and I only have one of them left.  

My blood pressure doesn't seem to be too terrible unless I am having an anxiety moment.  It is still almost always above 120/80 but the doctor doesn't seem too concerned about increasing my dose or changing anything.  Overall, I am having more and more good days with interjections of terrible days.  I wish that my main problem when I had a bad night was just being tired but it seems like when I have a bad night my whole body freaks out on me.

Dae3Dae3,

This was one of those days.  Me too at work had nothing much to do today so I surfed the web and looked up things.  My whole thing is that I can't shake the upset stomach, cramps and sometime nausea.  My stomach is just bloated, burning and achy to the point I just feel like it will never end.  My life feels as if it is on hold....no vacation planning, etc.   I have recently gone back into therapy and my therapist is going to teach me some relaxation techniques this week.  Hanging in there, we will make it.  When I am feeling better I am on top of the world but a day like today, I feel like that I am back at square one.  I tried a new allergy medicine that I saw on TV (Allergy Ease) yesterday and I had the "runs" all yesterday which I think provoked today's severe stomach issues.  That !@#! is going into the trash!

Here's a thing, I know longer feel bad about having to use my CPAP, now go figure that?  I just want my normal stomach back...because it hurts.

Thanks,
Aaron

I just got back from the allergist and I am not allergic to any of the 170 things they tested me for.  They did give me a nasal spray that is not a steroid and not addictive so I am excited to see if that works for me.  They also gave me samples of a acid reflux medicine.  The doctor said the acid reflux may be making it all the way up to my sinuses and causing irritation.  He also said I am to stop taking my blood pressure medicine immediately and have my doctor prescribe a type that is not an ACE inhibitor.  ACE inhibitors evidentally make allergy type symptoms appear.

I still find it strange that I have had chronic nasal congestion for years and my wife has been bugging me forever to get to an allergist and now it appears that I don't have any allergies.  

Dae3dae3,
Thank you for sharing your trials and tribulations here in the forum. I have to say, it has put my mind at ease about a lot of things that I went through last night and have been going through today. I am sorry to hear that you and others are going through it but it is comforting knowing that the issues that I am facing are not unique just to me and my experience with this. I am thankful that I am not going through some of the issues that you are having to deal with (allergies, blood pressure, anxiety). I hope that things get better for you in that regard.

I still cannot get over my frustration that I can't just put this mask on and wake up feeling like I did after that titration study - I just don't get it.

Please keep posting your experiences.

sleepless

Last night was probably my best night yet.  I fell asleep in a reasonable time and pretty much slept the whole night.  I woke up at 3:30 with some water in the mask because I had the window open and it was much cooler in the room than usual.  I turned the humidifier down a notch, shook out the mask and went back to sleep until my alarm went off.  

I do have some soreness on the back of my head where there is a small plastic buckle on my headgear so I am going to have to find some way to pad that but it shouldn't be a big deal.  

My blood pressure at the doctor today was much better.  They are sending me for tests for some pain I have been having in my lower ribcage.  They're going to test for ulcer, Hiatal Hernia, and gall bladder.  Hopefully I will find out something soon and get this junk treated.  Fortunately, I will only have to wait until monday to get in for the tests so I should find out next week.

I was diagnosed with gastric reflux (which I already knew) but the results of the blood tests have still not come back.  My gastric reflux is much worse than it has ever been.  CPAP is supposed to make gastric reflux better so I don't know what is going on.  I have read that xanax can make it worse so I think I am going to try to stop taking it.  I am also still not convinced that I don't have some gall bladder problems going on.  I have some chest discomfort almost all the time and it often is on the right side toward the bottom of my ribs right where the gall bladder is.  Add that I have terrible burbing that I have never had before and I think my gall bladder is doing something weird.  My blood pressure hasn't been terrible but it is pretty much never below 120/80.

As far as CPAP goes I am doing much better with it.  I pretty much can get to sleep in a reasonable amount of time and stay asleep for most of the night.  The only thing regularly disturbing my sleep is when our one year old girl decides to wake up in the middle of the night.  I haven't had a bad CPAP night for over a week now so that is good.  I think I would be feeling really great if I didn't have this chest discomfort all the time.  I don't care how many times the doctor tells me it isn't my heart it still freaks me out having chest pain and discomfort.  Of course I then take a xanax to calm down and now I think the xanax may be helping cause the reflux.  It is a vicous circle.

OK, I need to stop getting on here and talking about having good nights.  Every time I do it is followed by bad nights.

The last two night have been like I am back in my first week again.  It takes forever to get to sleep and then I wake up early.  My blood pressure has been up all day.  I also found out that I have gallstones and am going to have to have surgery to have it removed.  I am hoping that the gall bladder is the source of all these gastroinestinal problems I have been having.

I had my gallbladder out yesterday.  I can't say if it is helping or not because I am still on a lot of pain pills and have a pretty resticted diet.  

I took my cpap machine to the hospital and used it in the recovery room.  I was very worried about having apnea while drugged out and unable to wake myself to breath.  I am feeling decent I guess considering all I have been through.  I have pains in weird places though that I am assuming have to do with things that went on while I was asleep.  My soft part under my chin on the left side hurts.  I am assuming that they must have been pushing on me there with air tubes and things like that.  

I am really helping that I can recover quickly from this surgery and see if I feel better overall.  I guess I will find out what symptoms I was having were from the gallbladder and what wasn't.