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Cervical collar success story - can I turn pressure down?
#11
RE: Cervical collar success story - can I turn pressure down?
I did. My charts are almost an exact copy of yours and I have increased my pressure to reduce OAs, flow limits to no avail. To me, it’s all about compromise. Leaks wake me up so I keep my pressure down. My best sleep is not on nights I have zero events (it’s good sleep) but my best sleep is on nights when my AHI is .5 to 1.  

 I have tried many different collars and I finally found the “magical” one and it too was a game changer. Corflexglobal.com has many different sizes and I bought a couple different ones to try. However, measuring the way they suggested, my original collar from them was perfect. 

Did I mention I sleep on my back. Numbers do not have to be perfect, but you need to be comfortable. Even good sleep has a few events.
CPAP is a journey like “The Wizard of Oz”. It’s a long slow journey. You will face many problems and pick up many friends along the way. Just because you reach the poppies, it doesn’t mean you are in Kansas. 
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#12
RE: Cervical collar success story - can I turn pressure down?
Thanks all for the input here - I'm most appreciative.

Rcgop, thanks for your post , I'm interested to learn a little more about your journey, I will have a look through your threads - if there's any you can point to that might be helpful, I'd be most appreciative. 

Timely that you responded as I upped my min pressure to 7.0 last night from 6.2 as suggested to control flow limitation and it kind of had the opposite effect, with much more flow limitation and my pressure maxing out at 9.0 for most of the night (which has never happened before, it usually comes back down once it rises) and seemingly quite a few more events. I'm wondering if my congested nose is part of the problem for me re flow limitation. Sometimes I think the more the pressure, the more it gets congested and the drier my airway gets in general - would this create flow limitation - it feels like it? 

Curious about what Gideon and the others who responded earlier think about my chart from last night. I will post a previous chart with settings on 6.2min - 8.8max where I had a relatively good sleep, and then my chart from last night to see the difference. 

My sleep was ok last night, but could be much better. I'm feeling pretty dry in the airway in general.

Note - I threw on the nasal cradle and put EPR to 3 just for the last 45minutes in the morning, I just found it so hard to breathe through my nose with the pressure going in direct like this, I think I have to stick to full face where I still mostly breathe through my nose, but it's just heaps easier.

Also, does distilled water make a difference re. the level of dryness one might feel in their nose and throat? I'm using filtered water, rather than distilled and wondering if there is a difference? Any suggestions for how to improve dryness (other than humidification settings) greatly appreciated!!


   
   
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#13
RE: Cervical collar success story - can I turn pressure down?
Just a little update, I turned down my min pressure to 6.4 min with a max of 9.0. Very different result, much cleaner, please see two charts. Seems upping my min pressure causes more problems than it fixes. Also tightened my collar a bit, I think that makes a difference.

I was on EPR 3 last night and my flow limitation was better (I think). Sleep felt fairly solid with a few wake ups, one to nasal congestion which you can see when the pressure maxes out and flow limitation is high. 

Note - when I up the pressure, my airway dries out a lot, which I think compounds events. 

Still feel pretty out of it today, but not a complete wreck which is good. Room for improvement for sure... perhaps these pressures are not too bad with a little tinkering around the edges and it's about getting used to things?

Curious as to people's thoughts...

   
   
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#14
RE: Cervical collar success story - can I turn pressure down?
You have confirmed my thoughts too. 
I would like to say, everyone is different and what works for one may not work for others. 
You were curious about how I got to where I am today. Well, here it is. 

I started looking for perfection and as a result I kept changing the settings, some changes worked, some did not. 

First attachment. One year ago, I got to this point. Sleep was OK but not the best. This is when I was about to give up, so I looked at the past 5 years history and found the best AHI pressure settings were in the 6 to 8 range, that was where I started over. (Sleeprider, you were spot on) For the next year, I made no changes and was very pleased with the results. 

Second and third attachment. One year later. Best results and typical results. 

I hope this helps.


Attached Files Thumbnail(s)
           
CPAP is a journey like “The Wizard of Oz”. It’s a long slow journey. You will face many problems and pick up many friends along the way. Just because you reach the poppies, it doesn’t mean you are in Kansas. 
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#15
RE: Cervical collar success story - can I turn pressure down?
Forgot an additional thought. 
I upped pressure and got these results. Note that the flow limits forced the pressure to max but no events were logged. Sleep was still very good.
I have no plans to increase pressure, if anything I will lower them back to the 8.0 level.


Attached Files Thumbnail(s)
   
CPAP is a journey like “The Wizard of Oz”. It’s a long slow journey. You will face many problems and pick up many friends along the way. Just because you reach the poppies, it doesn’t mean you are in Kansas. 
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#16
RE: Cervical collar success story - can I turn pressure down?
Rc, thanks for the recap. It's surprising how some individuals are able to reduce pressure after resolving positional issues, and achieve better sleep quality.
Sleeprider
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#17
RE: Cervical collar success story - can I turn pressure down?
Thanks Rcgop, this is really interesting and I'm envious of those charts, looking really good. Thank you for sharing this with me! 

I think I will gradually lower my max pressure until I start to see any H, OAs or large FLs appearing and not being treated properly. At the moment, I feel the large spikes in pressure don't help my flow limitation and actually just wake me up. 

After that I will try lowering my min a bit also to see what happens. I think my main issue is positional apnea which is helped massively by the collar and just a low level of pressure. My nasal passage is not great and is often congested, which makes things tricky sometimes, and the higher pressures blasting in due to flow limitation or other reasons can actually causes more flow limitation problems because my nose just can't handle it - this is why I wear a full face which isn't so intense, rather than pillows where it comes in direct. I'm going to try the full nasal mask to see if that works, I think would be even better if so. 

Having said all that, I'm new to all of this and still learning about how this all works, so forgive my ignorance if I'm not making sense with some of it... Smile

It's all definitely a balancing act and everyone is so different. Thanks again for your response and everyone else's, I really appreciate it.

Honestly, my sleep specialist should study this forum to get more of a clue and actually get a sense of how differing people's situations are. Also, people who are diagnosed with sleep apnea or suspect they have it, should be directed here as a first step. it would save so much pain.

I was misdiagnosed by my sleep specialist with insomnia, even though I was sure I had some sort of sleep apnea and insisted on it, had to go to an ENT months after that to prove to my sleep specialist that it was sleep apnea... it's been a long journey that's for sure. I'm so grateful I've found this forum - thank you ALL for your help!! 

Attached my last night's chart for reference. Played a very intense game of basketball prior which I think caused me to wake up a bit more than usual, but numbers starting to look pretty good! EPR on 3 is better I think for me but will continue to experiment with this also at some point...

Rcgop, I think this is looking a bit similar to your charts before you lowered max pressure a bit, your thoughts?

   
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