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It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
#1
It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
Hey everyone,

   Just wanted to take a moment and thank you all for being so supportive and helping get my therapy on track. I am not sure where I would have been had I not had all your support. 

    Thanks

I am looking at my sleepyhead monthly summary and doing a bit of analysis seeing where I can improve. I have my first follow up with the sleep doctor in 2 weeks. I want to be prepared. The doctor is pretty laid back.  I did change my settings from prescription. I am fairly certain in end of the day the doctor only wants to see compliance, an AHI of less than 5, a general sense that I feel better and maybe address any questions or concerns I might have.

Anyone who's been through this before have any suggestions of things I should be asking or topics I should address?

I've attached the screenshot of my sleepyhead summary.

I am still working on getting sub 10% leaks. It's low enough resmed gives me a smiley face but I can get it better. Ordered an other collar, and F20 FFM to try out. 

I did have two incidents of Cheyne Stokes Respiration which I believe because O was deficient in magnesium. I have since corrected that. No issues before or since. 

Looks like I met the compliance requirements. YEA! I actually don't have any issues using the equipment. 

Therapy:

Not sure how much improvement is possible. I'd love to get a ZERO AHI every night but I have no idea whether that is realistic, I do frequently have them though.  Longer sleep periods into deep REM seem to get me a higher AHI.

 It looks like I am having some CA issues as minor as they are and those were not in either sleep study. I've read that I might need to increase my minimum pressure a tad bit or decrease my EPR. 

Any thoughts from the experts on improvements?


[Image: hHnekek.png]
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#2
RE: It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
Try posting you charts with sleepyhead. Not the compliance section. Look at my siginature on how to orginize sleepyhead then you probably get more help.
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#3
RE: It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
I think your perception of what the doctor wants to see is absolutely accurate, except he is going to ask how you feel about the therapy, or more likely, do you feel the therapy is beneficial. Your numerical results are great, and the only criticism is you are averaging barely 6 hours of sleep/use per night. I don't know how you get by with so few hours.
Sleeprider
Apnea Board Moderator
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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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#4
RE: It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
I typically goto bed at 6am and get up at 2pm (8 hours) although I have no set work schedule as I work for myself. I goto bed when I'm tired and get up when I'm not. Virtually never use an alarm clock.

I used to sleep 10-14 hours before cpap and wake up groggy now I'm running around like I'm on speed as long as I get 4 hours. I do try to get more of course.

It's possible that the day split at noon is messing with the averages.

The amount of sleep I am getting seems to be working.

* down 15 pounds
* blood pressure back to normal no meds
* fasting glucose has dropped 30 points now normal no meds
* all my blood work, vitamin d etc all normal.

I can post charts. I have posted several in various threads which I got assistance with.

I was looking more at an overview big picture kinda of thing.

The only tweak I think I need is reducing my clear airway events which is roughly half my monthly AHI.

Let me post a few of those charts.

Anthony
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#5
RE: It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
Your experiences of having more energy, motivation, weight loss and other improved health parameters are all noteworthy for your doctor. He is absolutely going conclude it is beneficial and to recommend you continue CPAP therapy. I think on the forum we can get too hung up on the numbers, while the true success of therapy are in the measures you recount above. Your CA events will probably subside nearly completely by simply reducing EPR from 2 to 1, with no further effort on your part; or they may be unrelated to your therapy and could be occasional sleep disturbances. They are not present at a rate that should be a problem.
Sleeprider
Apnea Board Moderator
www.ApneaBoard.com

____________________________________________
Download OSCAR Software
Soft Cervical Collar
Optimizing Therapy
Organize your OSCAR Charts
Attaching Files
Mask Primer
How To Deal With Equipment Supplier


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: It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
Like Sleeprider said doctor’s first question is likely to be “how are you feeling?”.  I had my face to face compliance visit a couple of weeks ago.

I took in color prints of SleepyHead daily printouts, copy of ResMed charts, my CMS-50F O2 summaries.

Doctor looked at my compliance 7+ hours nightly for 38 days when I went in and asked me how I was feeling.  I brought up my concern about CA’s but that is irrelevant in your case.

He looked at my charts and printouts - but compliance, is therapy working showing lower AHI, and feeling better after a month of CPAP is what he or she will be interested with.

Good luck
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#7
RE: It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
Yep. it is how you feel that really matters, numbers is one thing, but not everyone feel best with 0 AhIs, I know when I get that I feel slightly worse than when I get a better sleep with slightly higher AHIs.  Doctor is going to say to keep using CPAP as you feel a lot better and that is what he wants to hear.  He might be interested in how low a number you get to, but all he is interested in is how you feel and that you are using the CPAP and feeling a lot better.
If there are any questions you want to ask him, write them down just in case you forget to ask them, but do ask them and remember, there is no such thing as a daft question, we were all new to this once.   Smile 

If you do post your data charts the guys here might be able to improve in your figures a bit, but you are doing quite well looking at the monthly figures you posted, though you don't sleep for long and I wonder just how many of those hours you are actually sleeping?   Thinking-about
I am NOT a doctor.  I try to help, but do not take what I say as medical advice.


Every journey, however large or small starts with the first step.

Sleep-well
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#8
RE: It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
ok, some requested charts...I just picked a few. 

#1 First night trying to collar with the 
pillow mask

     


[Image: Tw6BI1y.png]
# 2 Worst night ever AHI, this was an anomaly evening. I think I was trying to use the FFM.
[Image: 0oYkyEl.png]

#3 This is really just a nap. Put here because of the clear airway

[Image: ZCAYVm7.png]
#4 This night I turned up the humidity and rained myself out. The snore is water gurgling in tube. I ended up getting wet that night. I got a climate line right after that.

[Image: G7bdy4W.png]
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#9
RE: It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
Looks great.
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Advisory Members serve as an "Advisory Committee" to help shape Apnea Board's rules & policies.

Membership in the Advisory Members group does not imply medical expertise or qualification for advising Sleep Apnea patients concerning their treatment.



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#10
RE: It's Officially Been One Month (31 days)
Your optimism and success thus far is encouraging. Do keep us posted on your progress.
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