[CPAP] Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years!

[Sleeprider]

Aw damn!  I did it again...confused myself.

[MikeBear]

I've seen in a few posts now from people helping others stating that they: "see your events are positional apnea".

What are they seeing that tells them that? I'm assuming it's something in the Flow Rate waveform data, but I'm not sure.

Thanks!

By the way, I've discovered my BEST consistent sleep so far is by setting my machine to Fixed cpap mode, 7 CmH20 start, Ramp = 30, pressure set to 11 CmH20, EPR = 3. 

Using those settings, my Flow Rate waveform is consistently much improved/not as crazy as over autoset mode, but apparently time has also allowed me to now tolerate a much higher pressure, as long as it's fixed. I think there's a bit more tweaking to do as I believe I have a few too many micro arousal's in the latter part of the night, but that may be due to spinal pain that builds up towards the end of the night, and/or bronchitis coughs so may not be fixable via cpap. I'm not sure about exact causes yet, but back pain for sure can be quite bad around 4-5am depending. But things are looking MUCH better now sleep wise!

[Walla Walla]

When you see no events than a group of events close together than no events that can be an indicator of positional events.

[MikeBear]

[attachment=4911][attachment=4912][attachment=4913][attachment=4914][attachment=4915]

I've seen in a few posts now from people helping others stating that they: "see your events are positional apnea".

What are they seeing that tells them that? I'm assuming it's something in the Flow Rate waveform data, but I'm not sure.

Thanks!

By the way, I've discovered my BEST consistent sleep so far is by setting my machine to Fixed cpap mode, 7 CmH20 start, Ramp = 30, pressure set to 11 CmH20, EPR = 3. 

Using those settings, my Flow Rate waveform is consistently much improved/not as crazy as over autoset mode, but apparently time has also allowed me to now tolerate a much higher pressure, as long as it's fixed. I think there's a bit more tweaking to do as I believe I have a few too many micro arousal's in the latter part of the night, but that may be due to spinal pain that builds up towards the end of the night, and/or bronchitis coughs so may not be fixable via cpap. I'm not sure about exact causes yet, but back pain for sure can be quite bad around 4-5am depending. But things are looking MUCH better now sleep wise!

Here's some charts with those changes above noted. My cpap machine clock is still on standard time. The first night of the changes I was fighting leaks as I didn't tape my mouth shut that night. Also, the one night that says EPR = 2 it was actually still set to 3, not sure why it says it was 2 that night. What brought me to try this change, was the fact my wife is set the same, except for her top pressure of 12, and she now sleeps very well. So, I figured it was worth trying, since nothing else was consistent for me before. Even though my earlier autoset settings had some lower reported AHI scores, I never felt really rested. I'm definitely feeling a bit better now.

Maybe I can eventually even slightly LOWER my top pressure, as it almost seems like it's overly oxygenating me...

[Walla Walla]

If your feeling better than that's what counts. You can try dropping the top pressure and see how it goes. With your AHI below 5 it's all about comfort now. By the way the last chart showing an OA isn't really an OA. Not sure why it read that way. You took a deep breath and that sometimes triggers a false report of an event. But usually it will report a CA falsely not an OA.

[Sleeprider]

Without looking at a short time-line where the wave form is visible it's hard to say more than you are doing well. I notice the baseline leak is elevated, and that the flow rate seems unbalanced with an uneven expiratory flow compared to inspiratory. All this probably means is you may be occasionally exhaling through the mouth but maintaining a good seal on the mask otherwise. Results are very good, and there is not much there that would require any correction.

[MikeBear]

If your feeling better than that's what counts. You can try dropping the top pressure and see how it goes. With your AHI below 5 it's all about comfort now. By the way the last chart showing an OA isn't really an OA. Not sure why it read that way. You took a deep breath and that sometimes triggers a false report of an event. But usually it will report a CA falsely not an OA.

I thought so also, so that's why I showed it to see if somebody else thought the same.

Also, thanks for the info on what you notice when you believe people have "positional apnea"

[MikeBear]

Without looking at a short time-line where the wave form is visible it's hard to say more than you are doing well.  I notice the baseline leak is elevated, and that the flow rate seems unbalanced with an uneven expiratory flow compared to inspiratory. All this probably means is you may be occasionally exhaling through the mouth but maintaining a good seal on the mask otherwise.  Results are very good, and there is not much there that would require any correction.

Baseline leak is elevated because I've been using my old Mirage Swift II mask during this time which is a bit different than the P10. The "Darth Vader" breathing from the Swift II no longer causes issues with me.

Just playing around with masks a little, to see what works best. I believe I'll be going back to the Airfit P10 soon as I don't want to change anything at the moment since I made such a huge change to the cpap settings in general.

Could the expiratory flow (I assume you mean the Median number?) be so different than my older charts because I have my pressure set a bit higher than I need, and since it's fixed, it stays high the whole time compared to autoset mode? Or, it could be just because I'm using the Swift II mask at the moment, and it allows me to get much more air flow/vent C02 better than the P10 mask.