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Finally...Data Screen Shots..Please Advise?
#21
RE: Finally...Data Screen Shots..Please Advise?
Two things.

1 - start a sleep journal. Write down each night what kind of day you had. High stress, no stress, same ol' same ol, whatever. Note any changes you made to the APAP. Note if the humidifier is on or not. Note what mask you are using if you are changing around. Note ANY differences. In the morning, write down how you feel. Slept well, slept awful, remember dreams, didn't, got up a lot, had pain, no pain, whatever is relevant to you and your sleep therapy. SleepyHead has a Notes section for each day. You can either keep a notebook with this journal in it or you can enter it into the Notes. I do both when I am making changes.

The reason for this journal is so you can use it when you look at the data. It helps with trends. You may see a night where the AHI is higher than usual and wonder why. You look at your journal and notice that was the day you had the in-laws over. A few weeks later, same thing. Hmm, in-laws equal high AHI. Why? Maybe 'cause you drink a lot to cover up their whining? Or you drink with them as you laugh? Or they wear you out with all the cooking and cleaning and whatever. Simplistic reason to keep the journal but valid one. It also helps to keep track of when you make changes. When I raised it to 6, did I also increase the EPR?

And 2 - make changes slowly. As in a week to 10 days apart. Or more!! You are looking for trends, not a big difference in just a few nights. No two nights are the same. What if you make a change and that is the same night the in-laws visit? You'd think the change was oh so wrong when it probably is just fine. By looking at the overall data, the ranges, pretty soon you'll notice when something isn't right. Or you'll know that the upper limit should be raised because you're hitting that max far too often.

Right now I'm evaluating my own data. My AHI is a freakin' roller coaster right now and I'm not sure why. So, hopefully a sleep journal and a spreadsheet will help me figure it out. If not, I'll get out the copper sheeting and cover my APAP with it to protect it from the aliens. Again.
PaulaO

Take a deep breath and count to zen.




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#22
RE: Finally...Data Screen Shots..Please Advise?
(01-27-2015, 05:44 PM)retired_guy Wrote: I still feel like you should make no changes for a day or so. Why? Because your average pressure according to what you posted is 9.8. You do hit your max one in awhile, why? You can only answer that by looking at your detailed graphs, but it is not often enough to send the averages up much. So I think if you set your max to 14, you will hit 14. 15, and you will hit 15.... I do not think these sound like true values. Perhaps they are simply caused by leaving the machine on when you take the mask off? Don't know.

But I do know I feel you should quit making changes for awhile.
Thanks Paula02 and Retired Guy...

Hey Retired Guy, you know I had that thought about the mask setting aside times myself...I know that the machine is set to compensate for leaks...maybe when I take it off and set it aside (mostly cause I figured it knew the diff, and figured it would auto off like it auto's on) it thinks we are having a crisis and shoots up? Not sure...I'd have to look at my scans.

Paula, I am doing just that, though I didn't think of all the good categories you suggest. I don't drink much and I heard it is bad for apnea...I was wondering how many hours it takes to clear that affect ie, if I want a drink, should I have it with lunch (-: I don't suppose I've mentioned I'm married to a Reverend? The in laws live far away but I've got the odd parishoner who could fill in.

Off to sleep for now. Hopefully better than my last night's 5 hours.

I'm staying put for tonight at my numbers. 6.6-13.6

Susan
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#23
RE: Finally...Data Screen Shots..Please Advise?
(01-27-2015, 03:29 PM)TheManseHen Wrote: Hi Daria and Big ears

DariaVader, Great name. Ouch teeth on fire sounds terrible! You have my condolences. Thanks for the mask recommend, I'll check it out!

Big ears, Good question. I am a newbie so I could be wrong and certainly will be unclear but...as I've had it explained to me, by the wonderful Paula02...Getting control of the apneas/hypopneas etc, is like herding cats. If one has a dozen cats in a big 20 foot room, you go to get one and put it back in the box, and while you are all the way over in the corner getting the first one, another one gets out and so on, there is further time to travel to collect all the kitties, thus control may be an issue.

Now I don't know all the science behind it, but I know that the machine takes some time to go from flat to fluffy, and I know it is somehow programmed (thinking algorithms here) to not run SO fast from flat to fluffy as to wake the sleeping person attached to said machine. Despite that, I had the machine do run aways where it seemed to be chasing after the rare outlier still fast and hard enough pressure wise, to give me terrible fitful sleep wherein I would without totally waking, rip my mask off.

A mask that is off, is less good than one that is on, and perhaps set a tad too narrowly.

I didn't just arbitrarily pick a number, nor would it seem wise to do so.

I studied my charts on ResScan for the period before I tinkered. I looked at my highest and lowest pressures and my average pressures and where my 95th percentile is as well. And then I made hopefully an educated guess.

I wanted to find a range that would be a little narrower, but perhaps less wake inducing, and more physically comfortable. After I get to that, I want to find one that gives me the best AHI. I had one great AHI night at 8-13.6 but 8 was too high too fast for me and I slept like someone being tortured. (had that for years without apnea, no thanks)

I may have lowered my upper limit too low because I'm hitting the limit I have now but instead of hopping right back up to 18.6 or 20.00 (which did not overall give me better numbers) I'm going to take it slow, knowing I can sleep "okay" with what I have it set at, and see where the numbers are two to five days. I am going to raise the pressure by .04 tonight up to 14.00 I'll keep doing so in small increments every two or three minimum, days to see what combo gets me the best AHI/Sleep comfort ratio.

For original smarter better non-newbie thoughts on why not leave it at 4-20 on autoset, see my OP of a few days ago "if i have an autoset why adjust the range" or something like that, and read the great advice I was given by cpap juniors and seniors.

I think what I'm realizing, rightly or wrongly is this...x percent (a massive amount) won't even try c-pap, and if they do, won't stick with it. Muscling through and going for the max if one is not used to it, sounds like a sure fire way to fail/quit/burn out. I'm putting in 9 plus hours a day on c-pap every.single.day. I am determined to succeed, but I want to do that in an "informed consent" evidence based kind of way. I've learned what the old timers seem to be saying is true, the body/brain...takes time to adjust to the air/pressure/humidity/lacktherof/noise/mask/ etc we are throwing at it. It's not a matter of just mentally going for the max and pushing through, though I'm sure some can do so. (there is a mental I'm going to use this therapy trials and adjustments and all for the rest of my life because I have no other choice health wise aspect, that's different) Good sleep isn't just about getting oxygen, it's about being able to sleep while getting oxygen. I've spent probably 15 years learning to sleep without oxygen to my brain and learning to listen to it screaming for help, it's going to take some time in the positive direction too.

Big ears, this could be total goo-goo...but it's what I think I know so far only 32 days in.

Susan

The main thing is to get what works for you. I've just moved from a fixed pressure machine and have found that the APAP is giving me about 3cm more pressure than my old machine was set at. In the beginning I occasionally had what you called the "runaway" night. Wink Because I already had 9 years of CPAP under my belt maybe it didn't disturb me too much. I just reached out stopped and restarted the machine. I'm pretty sure now after 2 weeks that I'm getting better therapy but on a couple of nights I'd have happily thrown the whole thing out of the window. I think my troubles were from not having the mask positioned correctly (I also had switched masks). However looking at the numbers on the machine display every morning showed that in the opinion of the software I was doing just fine.
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#24
RE: Finally...Data Screen Shots..Please Advise?
(01-27-2015, 12:42 PM)TheManseHen Wrote: I hope I didn't come across as a know it all about sleepyhead with Miss Sparkle! I just thought some playful newbie "come on in the water's fine" would be okay.

As a female on this board, one notes when there are other women going through this too, as we are in the minority (I'm not convinced we are as minor as the statistics show, I had to press and be my own advocate to get a study because I didn't present like a male with apnea might, no I don't have horrible apnea compared to many, but I experience it horribly, with voiding every hour or so all night long, more or less, for years and years and feeling half dead and waking in more pain than I went to bed with)


Susan in San Francisco,
A cpap baby, but feeling like I'm out of the crib and into the playpen!

Hi Susan ~

By all means - NO! You didn't come across as a know it all at all Smile It was that push into the pool that I needed! I actually had already downloaded the SleepyHead software about a week or so ago. It all went so easily. Then I realized that my machine didn't work with the SleepyHead and then learned the new SH version did - and I couldn't be bothered to go back and check which one I downloaded - yada, yada, And honestly I didn't want to mess with the card until my first dr. appt - so afraid I was going to lose the date - until I realized locking the card was so freaking easy! I'm a dope!

ANYWAY - I did get it all running with virtually no effort at all! I couldn't spend too much time looking at it as a class I was waitlisted in finally accepted me so I spent the evening trying to catch up on missed work (I figure I'll have my bachelor's degree just in time to display on the top of my casket lol - but that's not stopping me Smile)

So I will copy what you have posted and see what you all think!

Thank you for your support and friendship - one of the things I find tough dealing with this is the association that it is a "male" issue and here I am a female - doesn't leave me feeling very desirable!

Tricia aka Sparkle Smile
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#25
RE: Finally...Data Screen Shots..Please Advise?
(01-28-2015, 02:40 PM)Sparkle Wrote:
(01-27-2015, 12:42 PM)TheManseHen Wrote: As a female on this board, one notes when there are other women going through this too, as we are in the minority (I'm not convinced we are as minor as the statistics show, I had to press and be my own advocate to get a study because I didn't present like a male with apnea might, no I don't have horrible apnea compared to many, but I experience it horribly, with voiding every hour or so all night long, more or less, for years and years and feeling half dead and waking in more pain than I went to bed with)


Susan in San Francisco,
A cpap baby, but feeling like I'm out of the crib and into the playpen!


Thank you for your support and friendship - one of the things I find tough dealing with this is the association that it is a "male" issue and here I am a female - doesn't leave me feeling very desirable!

Tricia aka Sparkle Smile

ladies hate to admit that they snore, even when dudes are brave enough to tell them Wink

My RT who set me up with my Equipment was a lady with apnea. She said that in blind studies, there were approximately 2 women for every 3 men found to have apnea! So. While the men have more of it, it is not that much more. She also indicated that in practice, she sees more like an 80% men ratio. This is wayyyyy off. The industry is beginning to realize the untapped potential market that is women with apnea, and now there is the "For Her" lines at resmed, and a bunch of studies showing how the presentation and treatment of apnea differs in women. Personally, I think that they should recommend anyone who presents with nocturia get a study to rule it out. That would catch a whole lot of women who don't know that they snore
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