Not to turn this in to a medical thread or CPAP support forum, but I got my first CPAP in 1992, after one of my sinus surgeries and here’s a quick upside/downside of my CPAP usage
Upsides of CPAP
- Get sleep needed and can function
- Whoever sleeps with you doesn't have to hear you snore/shake bed/etc
Downsides
- Requires you to sleep near power
-- CPAPs do not work when there is no power (e.g. backpacking/camping, power outage) and the battery pack options are not great
- Traveling with a CPAP is a hassle
-- Hotels do not always have power near the bed, so I travel with an extension cord
-- While CPAPs continue to get smaller and more compact, even the smallest of them still the size of a stack of paperback books (better than the phone book size my first one was for sure!)
-- The mask and tubing takes requires luggage space as well
-- Traveling with CPAP in suitcase runs risk of lost luggage traveling with this in carry-on in addition to juggling a carry-on for camera, lenses and laptop
- Sleeping with someone vs. alone
-- Whoever sleeps with you, sleeps with your back to them - unless they like a breeze from the outflow
The upsides outweigh the downsides by far, and I hope this doesn’t come across as an anti-CPAP endorsement but if I could move forward without needing a CPAP life would be much different for travel (personal and business,) sleeping for my wife, etc…
-- M.