First of all: I'm from germany ... so this might sound awkward or funny phrased at least - my active vocabulary in english is a lot smaller than my passive vocabulary. So, some things might get lost in translation .. maybe if someone understands what I'm trying to say can jump in and put it in proper words.
(07-06-2017, 02:37 PM)dwd1249 Wrote: When I woke my right nostril was completely blocked and left one stuffy . This is not unusual for me.
That would explain
to me what we see in your "breathing pattern".
I would really advise you to see a doctor - a pulmonary specialist or an ENT might be in order too.
Next thing: to my believe it is the time to try a full-face-mask and start mouth-breathing. (This might be a huge bumper for you, if you trained hard in the past to not mouth-breath.)
I really do believe that what we are seeing are in fact obstructions. Obstructions caused by your stuffy nose - or the secretion "flowing" aroung in your nose. (in contrast to your airways collapsing)
Shortly after I went to bed last night I felt the need to use a handkerchief / clear my nose. .. thought of you and decided to wait a few more minutes. I'm using a FFM and I have "hay fever" or allergic rhinitis, so what your are describing is nothing new to me. (that's why I'm using a FFM) And please keep in mind that I was still awake during the following.
Here I was breathing just through my nose (at least mostly) - while stuffed / nose "filling up":
during the very short and rapid inhales I was "sniffing back snot" - what looks like "normal" breathing was in some parts pure mouth-breathing:
I have a different machine than yours and the resolution of the flow-curve is much lower than yours - but I would say: the pattern looks astonishingly equal. (considering the fact that I was still awake)
The fact that we don't see much mouth-breathing on your charts makes me wonder a little bit. I would assume you (still) get enough air.
the only problem is: your machine can't make anything out of it.
I would go even one step further and say: without the positive pressure your nose would block completely and you would start mouth-breathing.
The only problem I see here is: I'm not convinced that the machine delivers the right pressure for your obstructive sleep-apnea.
With a nasal mask you now have the problem that the machine is "seeing" 2 kinds of obstructions: the one from your stuffe nose / secretion and the "real" obstructions (collapsed airways) from your OSA - both overlapping.
If you do this "double inhale" thingy your breaths are really short and the machine cannot tell if there are flowlimitations or not - If the machine would know, that it is not looking on 2 inhales but one single really distorted one it would flag it as a bad flowlimitation / partial obstruction and raise the pressure. Hypopnea detection is mostly impossible, because the tidal-volume seen by the machine is not your "real" tidal volume - thus hypopneas can no longer be correctly flagged.
These machines have one task: keep your airways open with the air-pressure - thus fighting obstructions. But it should be mentioned that "normal operation behavior" includes one, in your case really important, assumption: obstructions here are meant to occur AFTER your nose - not IN your nose or in other words: collapsed airways NOT stuffed up airways. These machines are not meant to treat rhinitis / coryza / running nose. (although quite obvious they are to some degree capable of that^^)
If you have the chance to use a FFM - really give it a try and start mouth-breathing with it.
In the meantime I would give CPAP some considerations. Your overall pressure is pretty high - you somehow feel "refreshed" in the morning - so I would say: therapy is still working. If the pattern from the last nights is always the same, I would prognosticate that as follows: you go to bed with the lower pressure of 8 ... your nose starts to get blocked ... the machine raises the pressure (which somehow keeps the "secretion" out of the way) .. you still get enough air and not start to mouth-breath.
Maybe - just maybe - this blocking of the nose can be avoided or postponed if you start with a higher pressure?
As your machine cannot make out if you inhale or exhale or what is going on, it makes not much sense to put it on auto. - but I might be totally mistaken there. Maybe raising the pressure some more in the night really is helping and avoids mouth-breathing. - but than: why not just raise the pressure right from the start?
But that should only be really short-term until you
get your nose under control^^ - Do something against that - if you want to stay on nasal masks.
In case you forget until here: GO, SEE A DOCTOR! (pulmonary specialist / ENT ... and your sleep-doc on top of that)
Just my 2 cents on what we saw.
Please keep in mind: I'm not a doctor nor a trained specialist ... just another patient who just looks a bit different on the data from the machines^^