BFPG005 Stonecutters.

Tonight’s offering comes from my old pal Carl of Ginger’s Bread fame. He zipped in fast so I’d have an even number of guest pages, in spite of rarely having time for his own work. A truer friend you couldn’t ask for.

I’m getting used to my sleep breathing machine, but not very much. I felt terrible all day for lack of sleep. They say it takes a while to adjust, so I keep trying. I’ve awoken several times choking and clawing at the mask, which doesn’t ease one into a restful state… It also pops my ears.

Patreon fixed the donation thing. so none of you should need to do anything on your end. Several pledges were declined for reasons other than the glitch. I’ll send a note to those affected.

S3everal people have told me to post the go fund me link with every update so here that is.

You guys have been far more generous than I deserve. Thank you.

27 Comments

I haven’t commented for a while. We played WwF several years ago, good times. Anyway, I wish i had money to put towards your patreon and GFM. Maybe in a week or two depending on how work goes. What is this sleeping machine? is it like the thing Carol wears in Last Man on Earth? Prayers and good thoughts/vibes being sent your way for better health and restful sleep.

I still play WwF if you ever want a match. I don’t know the right spelling but the sleep thig is called a seepap. It forced air into your lungs for if you have obstructive sleep apnea. Anyway, don’t leave yourself out in the cold by giving me all your cash. I’ll take prayers and good vibes if that’s all you have.

CPAP. And not everyone gets used to it. My mom stopped using hers after a few months; she said she got better sleep during her initial sleep phase, but then she couldn’t get back to sleep after her middle of the night pee break because of the machine, so it averaged out to about the same sleep quality as without it and she was more comfortable without it.

I myself had used it, but found that it completely dried out my nose, leaving it raw and swollen shut. I since have stopped using it. There are nasal sprays you can get that do a much better job (imho), but they usually need a prescription.

My mother also reported the dryness issue as well as wetness on the face from the humidifier in the machine.

Nasal sprays don’t do shit for sleep apnea though. I think the main reason it doesn’t work for her is her deviated septum. That and the entire structure of her nasal passages is just smaller and narrower than most people’s.

My wife couldn’t use a cPap so she was given an oxygen generator and it works great and there is a “bubbler” that includes moisture in the oxy to prevent the drying out that happens when the cPap compresses the air it draws out most of the moisture

Interesting. My dad has used a CPAP for the past few years and it puts him to sleep quickly. One thing, though, is that he naturally breathes in longer breaths like the CPAP pushes. Maybe it’s because we live in the southeastern US where it is always humid anyway, but he’s never had any problem with the dryness as long as he keeps some distilled water in the machine. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
Also, he uses the full face mask, while many people use one that just goes into the nose. Not sure how much that would affect it, but maybe that could make a difference for some people.

I use a positive pressure (CPAP) machine to sleep as well (ordinary sleep apnoea in my case) and whilst it did take some getting used to, I couldn’t sleep without it now.

Please – before you read this, grab a bottle of salt, and use accordingly:
And I quote, “You guys have been far more generous than I deserve. Thank you.”
Balogna! You’re getting the support We think you deserve. If we like you better than you do, perhaps it is time to re-assess, … maybe start with you liking you as much as we do. Unless you have a ghost-writer, your comic is you, poured out as story telling. (Hmmm, that metaphor presumes illustration board and bottled ink – instead of pixels) If we think That (the comic- and by extension; You) is nift-keen, sharp, witty, and wise, then Maybe it is time for you to recalibrate your opinion. I’m Not saying you’re wrong, just saying you may wish to check the accuracy of that from time to time. It is a truth universally accepted that a young man possessed of a webcomic of some note, must have value and worth in heart and personality. ”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Jackie, we love you and your comic. If anything, you deserve more than we can give, because you put a smile on our faces, even when not much else will.

My dad was on a CPAP machine and when he got it they just gave it to him like that and it took him quite a while before he discovered that you need to calibrate the pressure to match your needs. I don’t recall the exact details, unfortunately… But if they gave you a CPAP or similar machine and you are still having trouble sleeping, do you know if it was calibrated?

Question: Are you using a full mask or nasal pillows? I had zero luck getting used to the full mask, so I switched to nasal pillows and I love ’em. My sleep is an order of magnitude better…

Same here. The full mask hept brushing my lower eyelids and I could NOT get used to it.

My Swift 2 (the Swift 1 was noisy)? I love it.

Plus, my mother had hers first, so discovered it helps to have a fleece “hose cosy” to prevent gurgling from condensation in winter (warm air inside, cold outside, condenses inside and gurgles or spits water in your face).

She also uses a small fleece cover for where it brushes her lip to ease discomfort, but my mustache takes care of that part.

(Rando expressing medical comments, take with grain of salt obviously. I normally don’t comment much, I’m a social lurker, but like everyone else I’m concerned so I’ll toss my $0.02 CDN into the ring…)

I’ve been using a CPAP machine for a few years now, and like the other commenters:

1) It can take a while to get used to, because your brain thinks the machine is doing the breathing for you (it’s blowing air down your throat, isn’t it?) but it isn’t really, it’s just equalizing the pressure to keep your throat from collapsing. For quite I while I had to remember to breath normally (heck, deeply) to get used to it.

2) You probably want to do a sleep study to see if the mask is effective. I had a study before the mask was prescribed, then 6 months after. After the second one, the pressure was adjusted a little bit, and I slept a bit better, but not much.

Overall, I sleep A LOT better with the mask. I ended up not using it for about 8 months for lots of bad reasons, and gradually started felling worse and worse and I didn’t realize it. When I went in to see my doctor I told him how I was feeling and he asked if I was using my mask. When I admitted to “no,” he just said “go back to using it.” I did, and within days I felt significantly better.

Again, internet rando, so grain of salt. But try and stick with it for a few weeks. It does take a while to get used to.

Been using a cpap for almost a year. Had to stack a hill of pillows under me to elevate my head comfortably, since the gas tends to go down my digestive tract, and would leave me bloated. The times it’s made my ears pop, I have to take it off to un-pop them.

Some of the trouble I’ve had, when I can’t get back to sleep after waking in the night… I just have to get up and do stuff for a while, until I can get back to sleep with it on. I’d be sleeping some weirdo hours, but I’d be sleeping well, and training myself to use the cpap. Might have to start doing that again. Old antidepressant made me drowsy all the time, so now I have to adapt on the new stuff.

Good health is so much *work*, eh? XD

I have severe sleep apnea. I started with a Philips APAP machine during my sleep assessment, and when it came time to purchase I bit the bullet and went with a ResMed S9 APAP rather than the cheaper CPAP version. The A (automatic) PAP starts at the lowest effective pressure (determined by a sleep study) and ramps up only to what is needed during my sleep as my depth of sleep changes, rather than keeping the same pressure all the time. (Of course I may be telling you stuff that you already know, but this is for the rest of the readers.)

I tried the CPAP settings for a week, but didn’t much like the constant higher pressure, which tended to dry out my nose as well. I sleep reasonably well for 5 to 7 hours per night, but sometimes I have to take a nap during the day or early evening. Comes with the territory.

I tried the nasal pillows (moderately cheaper), but they made my nose really sore by morning so I switched to a partial mask that fits over my nose and rests against the skin of my face (a Philips Respironics Wisp). It has a full-surround adjustable head gear, but the latter is lightweight and also has a small integral hose that feeds up through a loop in the top that keeps the regular hose from pulling on the nasal mask every time I roll over or change position. I suspend the regular hose from the bed’s headboard with enough slack to let me roll over to one side or the other, or sleep on my back (not recommended, as it makes the tissue collapse problem worse by adding gravity vectors). Yeah, it took a bit of getting used to, but I was so tired I was falling asleep anyway.

Of course if you have a head cold, decongestants are absolutely necessary, and even then . . .

Adjusting the humidifier is a bit of a pain, and the success can depend on ambient humidity, but it will help with the drying. And if I’m on the boat, the ambient humidity at water level makes the humidifier unneccessary.

NOTE: another source of drying is when your mouth opens during sleep. If you wake up with a dry mouth and upper throat despite the humidifier’s adjustment, you may want to get (or create) an optional strap that keeps your mouth closed during the night. (Yeah — I know — another thing strapped to your head that will interfere with going to sleep, but using it for a while may train your body to keep its damned mouth shut.) Sleeping on my side seems to give me better results according to the readings on the machine.

One of the keys to my getting to sleep is making it a routine the same time every night. I know it’s a key because if I change my routine for some reason, I have trouble going to sleep.

As much as I would like to think otherwise, I really do need the damned thing — I was waking up to a semiconscious state about 75 times a night according to the computers in the sleep study lab, which would explain why I was feeling bleary all the time.

The main problem with sleep apnea is that in addition to giving you crappy sleep, it also severely degrades your blood’s oxygen saturation, which in turn tends to kill off brain cells in the long run. I have few enough of those as it is, and they don’t regenerate — your body can repurpose some of those that are left to relearn some things, but your brain is never be the same.

Equipment expensive? You betcha! Worth it? How stupid do you want to become before you decide that maybe you should be using it? Of course not just intelligence might be involved in the losses — sensory processing, visual cortex, and a whole raft of other possibilities are up for grabs.

And your sleeping partner will thank you: the heavy snoring stops completely, replaced by the quiet whirr of a fan.

Eh — climbing down off my soap box now. Good luck.

Jackie,

Long time listener, first time caller. I had difficulty with CPAP systems also. My medico then suggested what is known as a BiPAP – same concept, but two pressures; one for in and a lower one for out. Way easier to deal with. See if you can switch to one of those. I sleep very well and don’t wake up in the middle of the night with the mask off, or having it farting in my eyes from overpressure. You need the rest, so do what it takes. It’l be worth the effort, I promise.

I use a BiPAp myself, I found it way easier to deal with than the CPAP. They also put it on “auto” so that way the pressure takes care of itself rather than me having to always go back to my pulmonologists office to get the pressures set higher. I used to change the pressures myself on my machine when I thought it was getting too low which is a no-no. I didnt know enough about how pressures worked and I set it way too high. I was getting pains in my intestines because of all the swallowed air plus they said I could have given myself another type of apnea had I kept doing that.

Hey, @Jackie, this Carl guy is actually pretty good!

Maybe he should have a webcomic of his own, some day.

B{P}

Sleep makes every single thing better.

The first thing they do when someone is being tortured is deprive them of sleep. It breaks everything.

Good luck with sleeping Jackie. :)

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