10 PROVEN CPAP Tips for the Best Sleep Of Your Life

hi everyone i'm chris with affinity home medical affinity hm.com and tonight i'm going to share with you 10 proven cpap tips to get you the best sleep of your entire life especially if you're on cpap you want to hear these tips uh the reason i say they are proven tips is because i've been learning these tips for the past three decades for about 30 years i've set up thousands of cpap machines and i want to share with you my customers my patients some of the struggles that they went through the most common ones and answers to those so especially if you're new on cpap you're going to want to watch this entire video to get all of the 10 tips we're going to go through them really fast and so just stay with me if you haven't already please like the page or subscribe to the youtube channel give that youtube video this video a like with your thumb and uh and i really appreciate that very much so please do subscribe and connect all right so first thing i want to do is let you know that if you would like to enter the contest it's super easy all you would have to do is is enter a comment just make a comment whatever platform you're on whether it's facebook youtube or whatever it might be type in there just like on the screen hashtag tips that's all you have to do you'll automatically then be entered to win the contest uh somebody's going to win a gift card at the end of this video tonight all right so put that in comments and so let's begin to roll first thing i want to talk about is when you first are diagnosed with sleep apnea in the very very beginning uh many of you have been using cpap for a long time so you can think back and remember this instance in your life when you first learned you had sleep apnea and the cpap machine is going to be set up well uh really you're going to end up with one of one of two paths everyone's super excited about getting the cpap machine but there is a difficult path and there's an easy path and to my estimation i would say it is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 50 as to which path one would end up going down now this is not a path that you choose either it's just luck or not luck it's uh it's going to be either a difficult path like the one there to the right up the stairs or the path to the left which is very smooth notice both of those paths are going to the same place the same place so whether it's a smooth path or a difficult path you'll end up in in the same place where if you just stick with it you'll begin to wake up in the mornings with uh just like this lady just with energy with happiness good mood good health and that is what i'm here for is to help everyone get to that place whether it's the easy path or the difficult path so some of you right now are watching this for one reason you are having a problem with your cpap so i hope that we will go over at the very very end we'll even have a q a so you'll have an opportunity to shoot a comment to me a question and i'll do my best to answer that so again type in comments hashtag tips and uh doesn't matter if it's uppercase or lowercase all that just no spaces hashtag tips and you'll be into the contest so let's get into this the very first tip that i want to share with everyone is please do not buy your cpap machine from amazon or ebay or walmart.com or any of those type of places mainly because once you have purchased that cpap machine from one of those places it's gonna be very difficult to have some any one-on-one support or possibly no support at all and if you end up on that more difficult path without support it is a recipe for failure and i don't want you to fail so make sure that either you're getting your cpap from a local dme where you can actually physically go into the office there and visit with them and talk about problems that you might be having um or at least uh a company that is a dme that is online perhaps like us that will supply that that information that you are possibly going to need going down the road now i understand you know especially these days you know inflation is happening so every dollar counts and you save a few bucks on amazon or ebay but i honestly don't think it's worth it it's not worth the few dollars that you would save and as a matter of fact if you search around check out affinityhm.com you might find out that our prices are as good as uh as those amazon and ebay prices for cpap machines and many other things as well so that is going to make your path a lot easier if you just take that first tip and here comes tip number two try various masks and pillows so it's typical to start off with a full face mask like this one like this one right here which is over your nose and over your mouth and sometimes uh if that's too much if you're feeling claustrophobic you can't handle that you can try the nasal pillows maybe with a chin strap but the point is that you need to try the different systems in order to really know whether or not uh which one is is actually the best for you so no matter how many cpaps i've set up i still don't always know even though we can ask the questions you know people are different and people have different likes and different dislikes and so if at all possible do try to try various different there's there's basically um just a few different there's over the nose and the mouth cpap mask there's the over just the nose cpap mask then there's the nasal pillows that are the two little prongs sort of that seal around the nose and then there's the cradle that goes under your nose and then finally there's a hybrid mask that is sort of a mix between the nasal pillow system and the full face mask but it doesn't have anything from from here up there's nothing so those hybrids are really good as well so definitely try different ones especially if you are having some problems you you definitely want to try various cpap masks and pillows tip number three leak test your cpap mask now we're gonna actually do this right now i want you to see what i'm talking about so if you're new on cpap you may find that uh that actually uh everything goes well at first through the night and then bam you spring a leak you spring a leak because um maybe it's not quite on exactly just right so let me put this on i hope that you can still hear me if you would let me know in comments if you can still hear me once i have this mask on and uh this is just can you hear me this is just a simple full face mask and i'm going to go ahead and clip it in place okay so once you have the mask on then you would turn your machine on up to your prescribed pressure and then just simply do this just simply look up look down look left look right and if during that process if during the process of looking up down left and right if you if you have a leak during those movements then you're likely going to also have a leak whenever you do fall asleep now another thing that you can do and i'm not going to put the whole head gear on again i'm just going to show you this once the mask is on you can pull it away and back we call it reseeding so you can reseat it just by pulling away and back and sometimes that is all that you need because they're they're a couple of different layers of material in there and it can get out of whack a little bit so the leak test is super crucial uh whether it's the nasal no matter what what type of mask or mass system that you are using it's really really great to do a leak test and again make sure if you couldn't hear me make sure it's at your prescribed pressure and not that ramp pressure so most of the time there's like a leak test within your system one of the settings that you can hit and it'll do the leak test at your prescribed uh level so let's move on tip number four watch tv or read and become acclimated now i've given this tip out a lot this is one of the very best ones especially for somebody that's brand new on cpap uh you you can during the day while you're awake and you're not even intending to go to sleep necessarily you just want to get yourself more used to using the cpap machine so that your acclimated to that pressure the way the breathing feels the mask itself and what will happen is if you you know for an hour or two watch a movie uh i like top gun i think it's a great movie to watch while getting used to the mask uh although it might be a little scary i don't know but top gun is good but watch a movie with the mask on with the pressure going and you'll find that you're you're distracted enough that it just becomes easier and easier and uh so that's a really good a really good tip so next one number five don't measure success solely on the data assess your symptoms and your dreams uh what i'm talking about here is you know i think that sometimes we get real tied up in our phone app that we have you know to to look at what the score is on the on the phone app but you know i did a video not too long ago and a lot of people responded to that video it was titled my score is 100 yet i feel i still don't feel like i slept well and that's that's actually very true so my point is don't worry so much about the data and the app uh but just focus really on on this remember what your symptoms were like whatever it was that sent you into the doctor's office in the first place was it you're sleepy all day was it headaches in the morning blood pressure those are the things that would be the best to use as a measurement tool to determine whether or not the cpap is is effective way more than any data any app any any number that you can get on on your phone so are you feeling better are you feeling rested uh you know are the headaches in the morning gone are you still sleepy or not and so use that information i i encourage you more than any other thing to determine whether or not you're uh you're doing well on your cpap all right moving on here's number six get a cpap hose holder all right so with the cpap hose holder it is actually a game changer i have a little clip here that i want to show you um that i actually tried using a cpap hose holder uh in in my bed just to sort of show you what it looks like it is a metal bar that goes up at the head of the bed that holds the hose up and away from you so check out this clip it's just it's very short very short clip but i want you to take a look so you see the hose holder is actually in between the two mattresses and it's just a little aluminum rod there's not much to it i think they're like 15 dollars roughly something like 15 bucks and uh but what it does is worth way more than fifteen dollars it it actually will keep that hose not only away from your arms and out of your way but also the water begins to drain back into the humidifier versus you know when you have rain out a lot of times the water will will go right back into your face so we don't like that either um so the seat hose holder is super awesome and i recommend that to everyone all right now here's a really good one coming up number seven and we only have 10 so we're getting close narrow your prescription so i'm talking now to people who have apap apap is not cpap cpap is continuous positive airway pressure apap is is automatic positive airway pressure so the automatic or auto positive airway pressure when we set the machines we set them on two different pressures uh sometimes when you know if you had a home sleep study your pressure is probably going to be a super wide range like 4 to 20. if you had a lab study they might have narrowed that down to something like i don't know 8 to 12 or something like that but more and more what we're learning is that if you have a a range of pressure the machine is going to constantly be trying to find the best pressure for you via it's looking at how many times if you're having an apnea or a hypopnea which a hypotenuse where you just you're still breathing but just a little bit but the machine is looking at these apneas and hypotenuse and trying to adjust itself to the correct pressure well that wakes people up and actually it may not be the greatest therapy in the world to especially if you have a super wide range of pressure so here's what you can do uh you can take a look at your data now this is this is a good use for data right here uh take a look at your data have your doctor look at the data and see where your pressure is running most of the time one of the elements in the data is it is a 95th percentile pressure so your pressure is at 9 ninety-five percent of the time for example then if you were on four to twenty and your pressure is at nine ninety-five percent of the time then why not call the doctor say hey doc can we change this to uh 7 and 11 for example of course it would be the doctor it's got to be based on a prescription i don't recommend people play around with their prescribed pressure at all i think that should definitely come from the doctor and however by narrowing that pressure it likely is going to help you sleep better if you can even nail it down to a single pressure then you know thumbs up and uh and do that of course again that's a doctor's decision so talk to your doctor about that one okay number eight mask liners if you haven't heard about these uh you know a lot of people have really sensitive skin and the silicon in the mask causes breakouts problems sometimes it's just the pressure and and the most often i see on cheeks some but most of the time the problem is right there in the bridge of the nose because the thin the skin is so thin right there and they have developed uh an item it's called mask liners it's just like a piece of cottony cloth and it fits the same shape of your mask so you put the mask liner on then you put the mask on and uh it's just soft and comfortable they're disposable and so a mask liner is super good now another thing if you don't want to go to the point of purchasing mask liners uh breakouts do happen for two other main reasons of the skin one is putting it on just too tight people that put the mask on too tight uh obviously have a good chance of a problem with the skin or if there's any any kind of oil that's remaining on that mask make sure you clean that off and also clean your face real well so if you have a really clean mask and a clean face less likely to have skin irritation and skin skin problems now i want to go back to the the putting the mask on too tight you know earlier in this video we talked about you know doing the leak test and making sure that the mask is on right but be careful not to over tighten it because over tightening is really just as bad as under tightening it so i recommend to kind of have the mask on kind of loose initially where it's leaking and then just gradually tighten it down a little at a time evenly until the leak stops then do the leak test and uh and then you'll you'll be good so you'll have it on as loose as it's possible for it to be yet it's not going to leak so mask liners are really great uh and so here it comes number nine this is a really super good one right here join a facebook group there is a really great group that affinity hm sponsors it's called cpap for beginners so you can go to facebook type that in join that group ask questions to like there are a lot of people there who some are new and many are many have used cpap and what i love to see is the post of the people who are new and like i'm having problems and what i do and then a couple of weeks later that same person is saying hey i've got it you know it's going well i finally slept all night and that that's a wonderful thing to see you guys as a community helping each other get through all of these difficulties and and so i strongly encourage anyone if you do facebook at all go to cpap for beginners join that group and ask questions and then finally uh for support and to answer questions and to find out you know what's happening in this world of cpap uh please subscribe to our channel i really would appreciate it very much as a matter of fact if you haven't already please like this video if you're on youtube but uh subscribing to this channel or some other channel you know there are some other really good youtube channels for cpap and i would encourage you to subscribe to those channels as well and you know you can find the answer the key ingredient to all of this is is is this and let's go back to the picture from the beginning whether your path is the difficult one on the right or your path is the easy one on the left the real key to success with cpap is to not give up to don't quit don't stop keep doing it even if even if if you would start every single night with a cpap even if you had a terrible night last night you know start the night off and what's going to happen is you get better and better and more acclimated you solve problems you know and and eventually i promise you it's going to be a therapy that will work for you if you can just stick with it and so that's my that's my my lesson for tonight and uh so let me encourage everyone if you haven't already done it um we're gonna do a giveaway here in just a moment and if you would type in comments is your last chance uh there goes an ambulance okay type in comments hashtag tips uh say a little prayer for the people that are the aimless is going to get but type that in tips and you'll be entered into the contest for the drawing which we're about to do right away after the draw and i'm going to come over to comments and take a look and we will answer questions if if you guys have any questions all right so let's see i want to share this with you and let you see and then we're going to pull the trigger and see who won for tonight so the winner of the gift card to affinityhm.com is go jane loylas jane congratulations that is fantastic jane is watching on youtube i see thank you jane for entering and thank you all for entering i thought it was going to be kimberly kimberly you almost did it but you barely missed tonight barely missed well keep doing it keep kimberly and everyone please continue uh to to join that contest really appreciate it so miss jane if you would please send me an email uh to admin at affinityhm.com and i'll send you a gift card let's do to our store all right so that is awesome now let's go ahead and move on over to the q a i'm going to take a look at you guys comments and let's see hello hello all right yes the nuke weather won last week it was uh i was actually out of the office and so sunuk you were chosen as the winner jane is back from the beach where the weather is glorious and then it was over a hundred this week yes indeed it has been hot hot here too but you know tonight is it's been like 95 degrees and uh it's going to actually end up being about 73 degrees tonight so i'm excited i might even open up some windows all right so hello hello i don't see any questions okay okay here's a good comment bob thank you for the comment cpap wipes are essential to mask care i use them on my airtouch f20 memory foam mask yeah i love cpap wipes and we actually have two different ones we have citrus or orange uh aroma or we have unscented and uh they're really not that expensive you get like 80 wipes for 10 bucks and uh you know so so it's definitely a good thing and it definitely does matter with the seal as well so i encourage everybody to definitely get uh cpap wipes all right was anybody got any other comments or questions for me i don't think so all right well you guys i really appreciate you all being here again please subscribe to the youtube channel share this video if you would share it out to your friends on facebook i promise there's somebody you know if you have let's say you have a hundred friends on facebook a lot of them actually use cpap and you might not know it so share it out there let people see get some answers and some tips and i appreciate it very much well i hope everybody has a wonderful and happy father's day to all of you men happy father's day uh and i look forward to seeing you next week same time same place i'll be here live and uh share some some really cool information with you i've got a video planned if i can pull it off with a tip to save you some money um so be looking for that on on facebook and on youtube all right everybody y'all have a great night

Channel: AffinityHM

Views: 99,916

Keywords:

Id: xw8ZYmUNclE

Length: 22min 51sec (1371 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 17 2022