u/Professional_Cap226

After 40 days of struggling with Apria Healthcare, I finally received my CPAP machine (ResMed AirSense 11) with a P10 nasal pillow mask.

I've been reading a lot of posts and watching videos about CPAP therapy, but honestly, I'm feeling overwhelmed by all the information. People talk about SD cards, OSCAR, SleepHQ, adjusting pressure settings, EPR, and so many other things.

My doctor prescribed a pressure range of 4–20 cmH₂O, but I don't even know what EPR is or whether I need to change any settings.

There's so much information out there that I'm getting anxious about doing something wrong. Because of this, I've had the machine for two nights now but haven't been able to bring myself to use it.

I just want to get started without overcomplicating things.

For those who have been through this:

• What are the absolute minimum things I need to do to get through my first night with CPAP?
• Should I just use the prescribed settings but how to setup and worry about optimizing everything later?
• Do I really need an SD card, OSCAR, or SleepHQ right away?
• Any beginner tips for using the P10 nasal pillow mask?

I'm not trying to optimize my therapy from day one. I just want to overcome the anxiety, put the mask on, and get my first night started.

I'd really appreciate a simple, step-by-step approach from people who remember what their first few nights were like.

35M here. Got my sleep study results back and my AHI came back at 94. My physician told me straight up she's never seen a number that high before, and I could tell that reaction shook me more than the number itself did. My brain immediately went to "nobody survives this" mode and I've been spiraling a little since.

Some background: I've been ignoring how exhausted I feel for about 7 years now. In the last 2 years I put on 50 lbs, my BMI is 38 now, and the weird part is I was already snoring loudly even before the weight gain. So I don't think this just came out of nowhere ,I think it's been building for a long time and I just kept pushing through the tiredness instead of dealing with it.

On top of that, I've got a deviated septum, and ever since I had COVID back in 2020 I get nasal congestion for something like 8 months out of the year. I wake up multiple times a night coughing up phlegm too. I've been through allergists and ENTs about this and nobody has actually been able to fix it. So now on top of the CPAP anxiety, I'm trying to figure out how any of this is even supposed to work when my nose is half-blocked a huge chunk of the year and I can't breathe through it reliably to begin with.

Now I'm staring down CPAP therapy and I'm honestly scared of it. I'm a mouth breather, so from what I've read I'll probably need a full face mask instead of just a nasal one, and the idea of that covering my whole face makes me pretty claustrophobic just thinking about it. I haven't even received my machine and mask yet, so right now it's all anxiety and no actual experience.

Questions for people who've been through this:

• How do you and your doctor/DME actually land on the right machine and mask for your situation? Is it mostly trial and error, or is there a real process to it?
• If you're a mouth breather with chronic nasal congestion or a deviated septum, did full face masks actually work out for you, or did you end up needing something else (chin strap plus nasal, or getting the septum addressed first)?
• Does congestion like mine make CPAP basically not work, or does the humidifier on the machine actually help with that side of things?
• For the claustrophobia ,how did you get past it? Did you just wear the mask around the house first, desensitize slowly, anything like that?
• Realistically, once you got dialed in, did your AHI come down a lot and did you start feeling like a different person?

I know logically that CPAP is supposed to fix this, but between the high number, my doctor's reaction, the mask fear, and now the nose/congestion issue nobody's been able to solve, my head keeps going to worst-case scenarios about whether this is even going to work for me. Would really appreciate hearing from people who started in a similarly bad spot ,especially with congestion or a deviated septum in the mix ,and made it through.