WM> I have been diagnosed to have Sleep Apnea. This means that I have to
 WM> sleep hooked up to a Cepap unit which forces air into my nostrils.
 WM> I now hear that British doctor Elizabeth Scottm medical advisor to the
 WM> Scottish Chamber Orchestra in London, England, has developed training
 WM> tapes of singing exercises called ," Soundless Sleep".
 WM>  I am searching for Dr.Scott and/or these tapes.

I would be interested in these tapes, also.  I hope if anyone knows of them
they will post the information in the net as well as notifying Mr Mittler
directly.

Walter...

My wife has recently been diagnosed with Apnea as well.  In her case, I am
afraid it is rather serious.  Heart damage is unquantified at this point but
soon to be determined via another slew of tests I'm sure <SIGH>.

In any case, she too is hooked up to a CPAP however is having a darn near
impossible time with it.  We have had it here for almost 2 months now and
although we were told it would take a week or two to get used to, we're still
struggling with it.

Mind filling me in on your experiences with acclimatization?  Tricks, hints etc
would be gratefully recieved.

Take Care

Gary,

My dad just recently had surgery for his sleep apnea.  For years he has
just terrible experiences.  Snoring being one of them.  I believe he has been
using the machine at night and he had some problems with it.  They had
been waiting for the insurance company to go round and round on whether
or not they would pay for surgery.  The surgery was to shave his palet
and remove his tonsils...so far so good.  He says he sleeps a lot better
now.  As you can probably guess, the insurance company decided that it
was detrimental to his health not to have the surgery so they paid for it.  
Yeh!

I wish your wife all the best!

Tina Browder

My wife has recently been diagnosed with Apnea as well..

I have used a C-PAP for almost a year.  In the beginning I had lots of
problems: air leakage around the mask making too much noise and waking me up,
continuously running nose nd post-nasal drip when I wasn't sleeping,
difficulty breathing during the day, etc.   I finally took my sleep lab tests
to another pulmonologist at a Univeristy med school.  She pointed out that the
setting could be cut in half based on the test results. (It seems they had one
incident of hypopnea in 9.6 minutes and extrapolated that to an hourly rate;
sort of like drawing a straight line correctly when only ONE point is known.)

That solved my running nose, my postnasal drip, and my breathing problem was
left; she took me off {*filter*}steroids and switched me to Atrovent.  After a week
or so I stopped suppementing it with Proventil, and after another month gasver
up the Atrovent.

My apnea is not severe, but it is severe enough that I wake in a panic if I
had not used the C-PAP that night.

It is also helpful to have a C-PAP with a "ramp", where the air pressure is
built up slowly.  It is also best for me to use a Respironics mask, because of
the swivel that lets me move around and be comfortable.

Air pressure is, I believe, in centimeters of water, so the pressure isn't
high.  The one I have has a dial in the back, under a cover held on by 5
screws, that allows for calibrated changes in setting.  My original setting of
13 was cut to 5, and raised by me to 7 to avoid morning panic.  I now can
sleep in any position comfortably with the mask.

It took me weeks of experimenting with the straps to get the tension right
without marking me up and making my face sore.

If she is having problems she should ask the supplier of the C-PAP to send in
a technician to help.  Mine was available without added cost as often as
needed, but I only saw her twive, and talked to her on the phone  about 3 more
times.

Maybe if you give some details of the problem I or others could offer specific
suggstions.

Please assure her she will get used to it.