Thanks Mugsy, that is helpful information, particularly how much you needed to change your IPAP/EPAP!
Last night was kind of interesting again, same thing happened right as I fell asleep, this time the machine actually recognized it as a central apnea:
So I guess tl;dr question:
Why could I be having central apneas right as I transition from wake to sleep?
On a positive note, it seems like my nose/face tickles have reduced and I have fewer mask off events! My SpO2 was much more stable than yesterday but I can't tell why, I didn't change anything.
I see two potential reasons why fewer tickles:
1. My mask is wearing out and my beard is growing, leading to a poorer seal (leak was previously ~0, now constant) --> maybe the extra airflow helped.
2. I switched the soap with which I wash the mask and I also switched the body wash and shampoo I use --> maybe allergies reduced.
What is odd is that tonight I had few oxygen drops (2.0 SD/h) and few mask off arousals (0.53/h), but I ended up w/ higher heart rate variability (20.66 PC/h). So either:
1. I'm still having micro-arousals
2. PC is actually not as useful of a metric as I had hoped
For #2 it could go something like:
1. Low amplitude PC events -> bad (I read low HRV is a sign of an unhealthy heart)
2. Medium amplitude PC events -> perfect (opposite of above)
3. High amplitude PC -> bad (real arousal beyond a certain pulse rate)