Do you have to use your machine every night?
NO!
Knowing that involuntary habits can actually be retrained made me wonder if the Bipap/Cpap therapy is something that needs to be continued indefinitely. My answer to that question (in my case) is an emphatic No!
I began my test to find this important fact was true by discontinuing my nightly practice of lacing up my mask and pushing the start button on my machine. For two weeks I refrained from using my machine in order to establish a starting point with the number of episodes the first night I returned to reusing the mask. The first night registered 30 episodes which was expected. After that, I continued with nightly hookups with my mask until the episodes were lowered to around 8-10 episodes each night.
The next step would include the use of the machine every other night. The results were very encouraging for after two weeks, the number of episodes remained around 8-10 each night. Getting even a little break from the mask was a big improvement for me. The daily use gets very unpleasant, and a day off made a big difference in how I felt about the therapy.
That brings us up to date on what I have found helpful when trying to improve conditions of Sleep apnea.
I will continue to test the use one night, skip the next alternation practice for a while and eventually expand it to more nonuse than use as long as the number of episodes continues to be acceptable.
Our next post will include some additional suggestions that may be of value to our readers.