Head Colds and Breathing Masks

It's a strange feeling when you are told that you are sleeping wrong. I mean, it's sleeping, how can you not do it right?

When I finally got on my wife's insurance plan and had my first doctor's appointment in I don't know how long, he asked me how I was sleeping.

"The regular way," I said, "eyes closed, lying down.. you know."

He sent me to a sleep clinic where they hooked me up to a bunch of machines and told me to sleep normally. Then they proceeded to wake me up every few minutes to ask me how I was sleeping. The diagnosed me with sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is where your throat will close while you are sleeping and you will almost wake up, but not quite. You never go into the restful REM sleep so you always feel tired.

After I got my CPAP machine I started sleeping the right way. The machine consists of a mask that fits over your face. This is attached by a hose to a unit that pumps air into the mask. It creates an air pressure that keeps your throat open. It took some getting used to, but now I can't imagine life without it.

I am now suffering through my second head cold since I got the machine. It's not because of the machine, it's just your regular head cold. However nothing is quite as gross as having a runny nose while you have a mask strapped to your face that covers your nose and mouth. You wake up in the middle of the night to feel snot running across your face. Yuck. Then I as I was lying there, after going to the bathroom to blow my nose and wash my face, I realized that the machine was doing it's job. That is to create air pressure to keep my throat open. Usually, when I'm breathing through my nose, it's hardly noticeable. However, with my nose severely clogged, I was sleeping with my mouth open. With the air blasting straight down to my throat making it feel dry and making me feel a little bit crummier.

I did finally fall asleep. But I'll be glad when this cold goes away.