CPAP for 10 Years - STILL HIGH AHI's!

[Sleeprider]

Jennie, don't jump to conclusions until you try the soft cervical collar.  You continue to have obstructive apnea in clusters, which is the signature of positional apnea.  We have had members try to address this with CPAP pillows and other solutions, with exactly the same ineffective results.  Both your apnea and your leaks will be resolved with the right collar.  My confidence in this is so high because I've seen it so many times.

[jennie54]

I am still finding it difficult to rearrange things on my charts to just post the ones that will be helpful. Is there any way to edit out the charts that aren't helpful and have the others all fit in one page? I see others put their charts up and don't know how they get all of their info on one page. Thanks.

[Sleepster]

I'm at the point where I don't think anything short of surgery will help my sleep apnea improve. My numbers with using CPAP are still worse than people who have sleep apnea and don't treat it. I'm stumped, confused and very frustrated.  What am I doing wrong???

You aren't doing anything wrong. In fact, quite the opposite. You are following the advice you're getting here and that's the right thing to do.

It's a mistake to think that only surgery will help when there are a number of steps to be taken with your CPAP that you haven't yet taken. Be patient. It took us decades in most cases to develop obstructive sleep apnea. It will take some time to reverse that.

Let's hope that the soft cervical collar will improve things. Then you'll feel better and you will be less anxious. Many if not most of us have gone through what you're going through. When I started I had gas pains all day from swallowing air, my AHI went up when they gave me a different machine to treat it, and I was getting less sleep not more because the hose and mask kept bothering me.

After a week or two I started to wake up on some mornings feeling like I actually got some quality sleep. As the weeks went by I had more and more of those mornings. I did a lot of tweaking to my settings. Now that I'm fully adapted to sleeping like this I'm done tweaking, have good numbers, and feel well rested on most days.

[DeepBreathing]

I am still finding it difficult to rearrange things on my charts to just post the ones that will be helpful. Is there any way to edit out the charts that aren't helpful and have the others all fit in one page? I see others put their charts up and don't know how they get all of their info on one page. Thanks.

Jennie, have a look at this page: http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...ganization

In the image of the daily screen you will see two small items labelled Event flag selector on the bottom left and Chart selector on the bottom right. Each is a pop-up menu, and each item in the menu will have a green and black icon next to it. What we need to do is turn off the items we don't need. The icon will change to red and black when the item is turned off.

• In the Event flag selector, turn off everything except obstructive apnea, central apnea (or clear airway), hypopnea, Snore VS1 and RERA. Make sure Snore VS2 is turned off.
  
• In the Chart selector, turn off everything except Event flags, flow rate, pressure, leak rate and flow limit.

We might change these later but that's a good start.

Then turn off the pie chart - the instructions are on the same page I linked to above.

Hope this helps.

[Sleeprider]

Jennie, any chance you can post a zoomed in view of your chart that includes a 2-minute view of the Flow Rate? By looking at the respiratory flow wave-form, we can tell much more about whether you could benefit from pressure support that would justify a bilevel machine. Just choose a daily detail chart and keep zooming in by clicking on the chart until the respiratory flow rate is clearly visible, then take the screenshot (F12).

[ajack]

I saw on another thread that you have emphysema. While the apap can be adjusted for you, once your charts are set up. It may also be time for another sleep study. Treating COPD with bilevel is quite common.

[jennie54]

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Data from night of June 19, 2019 - I am totally confused about that 56% Leak, not to mention AHI again very high at 11.2. I readjusted the straps on my headgear straps last night - could this have something to do with those leaks being so high? I feel like I may have done just as well not even using my machine last night at all. Still haven't figured out how to condense those charts under Event Flags into 1 page on my screen, so again will try to attach them one by one.

[jennie54]

   

Is this the info you wanted me to show - this is from June 19th

[jennie54]

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Is this what you're looking for?  Does this section of my Flow Rate bring things into clarity for me? And if it's determined I may need a Bi-Level machine, does that mean it's working like a ventilator for me and I will become dependent on it to even breathe? Still so confused.

[DeepBreathing]

Jennie, can you zoom in much closer? We need to see about 2 minutes of flow wave (you've shown about 2 hours).

Have you got the cervical collar yet? I think that will show a big improvement.