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How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
#1
How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
1. Mask: almost every person opens mouth during sleep. Even if you don't it will open due to high pressure. So Buy a mouth covering mask.
2. Headband: These open very easily during sleep. First make them stronger with velkro. Second turn it 180 decrease. Meaning the velkro will be jammed between the headset and your head so that it wont open during night. Normally velkro looks outside.
3. Ramp feature: If ram is too short it will give you a heart race. You will start feeling your heart beet and wont be able to fall asleep. It should be long enough to avoid this problem. Also instead of smart ramp prefer long standart ramp for the same very reason. If you are waking after 1.5 hours of sleep this is the reason for it.
4. Ideal minimum pressure: Is the pressure that pushes your diaphragm gently when you are awake. If it doesn't push your diaphragm than it is not sufficient enough to fill your lungs with air. 0,5 below this pressure it makes you sleep and shows your hole nights ahi graph perfectly without and gain from therapy. Just like a sleep test. With minimum pressure you will gain minimum gains from therapy. If you wake during night make this your minimum pressure and try know max pressure with 0,5 increases every second night. When you reach a point that increasing max pressure wakes you up at the max point go 0,5 back.
5. Heated tube: is a must you must understand fast air pressure dries you and makes you cold. You need heated tube or you will wake up because of cold and shivering. Start with one increase every night to find your minimum level. That you sleep 7 hours without shivers. 
6. Humidifier is a must your nose wont be sufficient to humidify the air. You need humidification. When you wake up check your throat. If it feels dry start with setting 1 increase every night till its sufficient. Don't exceed this level, since more humidification means less air and oxygen. You can set your auto humidification to this level also. 
7. Sleep duration: Never sleep more than 7,5 hours it will only make you tired and wont help you get better.
8. Philips dreamstation upgrade: Is a must and very easy. Download installation file. Save it  to your sd card. Enter card to machine. It will ask you if you want to upgrade say yes. After installation delete file from sd card. I has much better intelligency without it pressure only goes up and wakes you up. When sufficient it lets the pressure to drop to lower levels.
9.Ups: If electricity goes out at your district at night buy one. It happens a lot because electricity company makes maintenances at night. Remove the buzzer or it will wake you up. Put it in cabinet to avoid fan noise. Try one without fan and buzzer. 

Every minute of therapy counts.  
Good luck, good healt, don't let sleep apnea steal your health and life from you. Not following the therapy will result in early demantia, diabetes, brain, mustle and all kind of problems.

Ps: If you have nose problems. If you can't breath from your nose. Hurry up find a doctor to fix it. Loose weight eat healthy. Don't drink alcohol especialy after 18:00. Best don't drink it. Don't eat after 20:00 max.
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#2
RE: How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
First let me welcome you to the forum.

I disagree with much of what you have said, but I'm glad it works for you.

1. Masks, if nearly everyone opened their mouth at night there would not be a market for nasal masks. And there are many ways to resolve mouth breathing , see the mouth breathing section in the mask primer linked in my signature. Get a tall glass of water and a straw. Now blow bubbles. The pressure to took to blow a single bubble was the max pressure that a CPAP is capable of. If that caused you any difficulty at all you have some serious pulmonary issues.

2. Mask headband, inside out. Intriguing idea that would make it nearly impossible to adjust the straps in the manner suggested by the manufacturers

3. Ramp. The general recommendation for ramp is to not use one. Most experienced users, not all, don't use a ramp. I have not heard of tachycardia being associated with a ramp at any time. Note that while in a ramp you are not receiving full therapy.

4.mimimium pressure depends on the brand of machine you use and your individual apnea. Minimum pressure needs to be high enough that when the event precursor is detected that your device can raise pressure fast enough to head off future obstructive events.as indicated above this pressure varies considerably with brand. To perform the breathing assist the OP is talking about requires a BiLevel, not a CPAP and then the criteria shifts to establish EPAP at a level where OA events are minimized

5.heated tube. The purpose of a heated tube is to prevent condensation or rainout in the tube, not to heat the air moving through it.

6. Humidifier. Humidity is a very personal thing. where one person reactswell to high humidity another wants low. Try both and choose.
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#3
RE: How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
If this works for you....great.

However, it's dangerous to suggest that this is the perfect set up for everyone's therapy. You seem to have gotten some bad information on many of your points.

Clearly, with PAP treatment, one size does not fit all.
My get-up-and-go musta got up and went.  Cool

Download OSCAR for your sleep data.  
https://www.sleepfiles.com/OSCAR


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#4
RE: How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
My vitals: 70 yrs old, slightly obese, very mild COPD, otherwise healthy, daily 30 min exercise (walk).Sleep test showed 28/hr apnea’s. Blood Ox always 97%.

I’m glad you guys came along to dispute a little bit of what the Op wrote, I have only been on Cpap now for about 3 week but I’ve tried several different settings after doing a lot of reading And discussing with my sleep tech, and also find that the machines was set at 5 to start (red med auto set air sense) and it simply was too hard to breathe .I upped it to 7  as a minimum pressure and it’s working perfectly fine, I also brought down the max pressure from 20 to 11, because at 20 if I got any type of leak , it would blow it off my face. 7 to 11 works very good, it’s giving me an daily AHI of about 2, and I wake up feeling far better getting about 6 1/2 to 7 hours a night. I also changed the EPR from 2 to 3, and that made a nice difference for breathing out. I turned the ramp off. I am also getting excellent seal with the dreameear nasal, the medium fits me absolutely perfect,  I can roll around in bed and never get any leak at all.

I don’t think you can look at any of the settings and say it’s universally the same for anybody, we are all different.
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#5
RE: How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
Hi Glen e!  -  Welcome
Just because you read it on the internet, doesn't make it true.    We encourage everyone to analyze any and all information before proceeding.  What will work for one person doesn't mean it will work for others.  If that was the fact, we would only need one machine and mask type.  Imagine all the money the manufacturers could save if they didn't need to make different masks and machines.  The trick is to look at what helped the OP and, if you are experiencing a similar problem, think if that idea might help you.

The bottom line is that I am glad he is having success and singing its praises.  So many PAPers give up on this therapy.   That is one reason insurance companies have compliance reporting.
Crimson Nape
Apnea Board Moderator
www.ApneaBoard.com
___________________________________
Useful Links -or- When All Else Fails:
The Guide to Understanding OSCAR
OSCAR Chart Organization
Attaching Images and Files on Apnea Board
Apnea Helpful Tips

INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
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#6
RE: How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
When to comes to SA Therapy, there is no one perfect plan / process that suits all.  

The therapy is as individual as we are.  Bigwink
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#7
RE: How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
I’m with Bonjour on this one.
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#8
RE: How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
I am so glad and thank full that you kindly responded to my post. It made me realize different people have very different needs. For example it is impossible for me to even imagine falling asleep without ramp feature. I guess I exaggerated the topic. But these are what I felt and went through during my therapy. At pressure 7 I feel like a just drank a cup of coffee. But I still suggest velcros to fasten headgear. Turning upside down is a good idea for philips dreamwear because they use magnets to click on and you do not really need to undone velcros to put it on. I have also realized many techs do not advise flex option just like some do not advice ramp option. But it seems to be necessary for some people. I would not exaggerate making tests on therapy options.
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#9
RE: How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
For me, the therapy has gone very well and I adapted to it with very few to no issues. The very 1st night, I slept a full 8 hours. 

Sleeping with a mask on was no big deal for me. I initially thought that was the craziest thing I'd ever heard of. 

It's now been over two years, and I'm still waiting for the good feeling train to pull out of the station.  Dont-know
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#10
RE: How to perfectly set up your cpap machine, the best set up, best adjustment pressure
Your OP seemed to be advice to all and not specifically what you did.

I would encourage you to post your OSCAR charts as even for you doing it for yourself I didn't see OSCAR mentioned. You may be surprised at what you learn.
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