[Pressure] Am I using good criteria to set hi/low pressure

[Michael Shaw]

I have had my Resmed 10 autoset  for one year. It came set at with the pressures set at  6/14.  After on month of data (SleepyHead) I noticed that when my machine was first turned on it went to a pressure of seven and never went below it.  So I changed the low pressure to 7, which it has stayed at for 11 months.  So the low pressure of 7 seems to be very good.  Full stat sheet for the last year is below. 

In the past I have tried to set the upper pressure by looking strictly at overall AHI score, and found this very difficult to do. 

So I decided that when I had sleep AHI clusters longer than 1 hour  (see SleepyHead graph below) that I would raise the pressure till they were under 1 hour.  I got up to a pressure of 17.  For two months my AHI clusters were no longer than 30 minutes.  Last two weeks I set pressure back down to 15 and AHI  clusters have gone back over 1 hour in length. So I just now reset the pressure to 17. 

What systems have others used to successfully set the upper limit on their machines?   Any suggestions or comments on the system I am using?

[Gideon]

The issue that you are having is very likely positional and has little to do with pressure.
In fact, if you are comfortable with pressures under 7 you could even lower your pressure a bit.

Positional Apnea that you are experiencing is likely occurring from tucking your chin, when you tuck your chin you are distorting your face to the point where you are developing mask leaks.  The solution that works for many is a soft cervical collar worn loosely as we want to keep the chin up, not support the neck.  An anti-snoring collar also works on the same principil but has no back support on it.  Try that and see what happens.

[Sleeprider]

I agree with Fred as usual. You are obstructing in clusters that is nearly always positional. Fred and I have written a few wiki articles on this subject. Please read:
http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...onal_Apnea
http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...Limitation

It is pretty easy to fix, and others have had much higher AHI and fully resolved it using the soft cervical collar or wedge. Please read how to organize your Sleepyhead Charts in both Fred's and my signature links. We can see much more if you minimize the monthly calendar and turn off the Pie Chart.

[Michael Shaw]

I can clearly see the logic in saying this is a positional issue.  I have ordered a soft cervical collar from Amazon and it will arrive tomorrow.  


Thank you gentlemen  for the excellent articles you have written.  I have written a few small articles so I fully appreciate the amount of time that it took to write those articles!   Once I feel comfortable with the collar I will definitely use your article "Optimizing therapy" and "Flow Limitation" to help tune in my CPAP pressures.