“Sleep is frustrating, elusive, diabolical…my best friend and my worst enemy.”
Hello, everyone. My name is Kirk. I’ve had difficulty sleeping since I was in high school, but it’s only really started affecting my health in the past ten years. I went to a sleep clinic about ten years ago and was diagnosed with mild apnea. I read that being overweight makes the apnea worse, so about three years ago I decided to lose weight through diet and exercise. I’d lost about ten pounds in the first month when I tore my Achilles tendon. It’s all been downhill from there. I’m 45 years old, but I feel like I’m hovering around 70. I’m technically asleep for about 5-6 hours each night but it feels like it’s only been 45 minutes. I have serious difficulty falling asleep but no problem sleeping through alarms.
I’m researching buying a CPAP machine and have found a few that look like decent devices. It was actually through this research that I found this site. I was hoping that someone could recommend a good permanent CPAP as well as a good travel machine. I was recently told that if you bought a cpap machine, you’d never be able to change the settings. I’m also wondering if this is correct. Also, I’m normally a side sleeper, but I found myself on my stomach when I woke up today, so I basically shift around.
I live in Taiwan, but I’m going back to the states in four days. Seeing an ENT tomorrow to get a sleep clinic night set up (but I might have to wait a month or more). Insurance will cover the ENT visit and the sleep clinic trials, but not the CPAP machine itself, which is prohibitively expensive in this country.
Three questions:
- Trustworthy permanent bedside CPAP machine. (voltage - Taiwan almost everything is 110)
2.Trustworthy portable/travel CPAP machine.(voltage)
- Can the settings on a CPAP machine be adjusted, or is it true that once it leaves the retailer, it can never be adjusted again.
Thanks for any help and input.
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