(08-10-2013, 06:56 PM)samurai Wrote: Hello.
I had a home sleep study in June 2013 and my AHI was 12.
Bought a Respironics Auto CPAP, and after 8 weeks use, it says that I still have a 7.4 AHI.
Shouldn't it be zero? Why isn't it correcting it all the way when it is an auto? It is set for a range of 4-20.
What should I do? I know that my mask falls off from time to time (the darned alarm doesn't like the pillows), and is this factored in?
Please advise.
I also use a Respironics Auto CPAP (DS760TS). My sleep study AHI was 57 and my pressures were 25/20 with a Bilevel setting of 2 (high pressure). I decided to set the thing on auto after a week or so of use. I gave it a test, thinking I could set it at 4, set the pressure support, and it would find the correct place in the world.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Eventually I settled on 16 with a pressure support of 5 (16/21 baseline).
If you look at the machine's behavior in Sleepyhead software, it shows that the pressure ramp-ups in the case of apneas are slow. Mine will ramp up a little most nights for awhile, and then ramp down (slowly)
You might also check if your positionally sensitive. During the sleep study, the techs were unable to titrate when sleeping on my back. So the 25/20 is on my side (and the pressure limit of most machines). When I tried sleeping on my back, the AHI score went from 0.5 to 15. I've had a score of zero, but just for a few nights. I suspect that many "normal" people around would have occasional hypopnias and are asymptomatic. Zero every night is probably too much to wish for.
You might want to raise the floor on that auto. The machine has some smarts, but in the real world, it's still a bit of a dunce.