[Pressure] Do I need a Bi-Pap or higher pressure APAP?

[Sleeprider]

As you know, this pattern of clustered obstructive apnea is the signature of positional apnea that should respond well to using a soft cervical collar.  I assume you have read the soft cervical collar wiki, and the positional apnea article linked in that wiki. The SCC should make a big difference for you.

[Johnnyde94]

I have read up on that, and I should have had my collar last week if Amazon didn’t loose my package in the mail lol. Luckily I’ll eventually get a refund from them, and tracking says my replacement will be arriving today! I tried sleeping with a backwards neck pillow but that seemed to do absolutely nothing lol.

[Johnnyde94]

As you know, this pattern of clustered obstructive apnea is the signature of positional apnea that should respond well to using a soft cervical collar.  I assume you have read the soft cervical collar wiki, and the positional apnea article linked in that wiki. The SCC should make a big difference for you.

What’s the deal with the central apnea that’s towards the end of that apnea cycle, could that just have been the machine misreported a OSA as a CA? Luckily it seems if im reading right my flow limitations are much lower I am just disappointed this machine does not record rera events.

[Sleeprider]

The "deal" on the CA is that you managed to move enough air to still record an apnea, but the your airway is still physically obstructed. As a result, the machine detects an open airway with apnea present and scores it incorrectly as central. The machines are not perfect, and that is not a central.

Here is the link on Positional Apnea. It's in the Optimizing Therapy wiki which is overall a good read http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...onal_Apnea
This is the soft cervical collar wiki http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...cal_Collar

[Johnnyde94]

That all seems to make sense to me. If I were to adjust the maximum pressure to 25 do you think the machine will use all of the extra headroom or still stay around 18-19 as the average pressure? If I was to rase the max to 25 I think I would also raise the min to 12 because the pressure doesn't really bother me, except for pressure build-up and "clogging" of the ears.

[Sleeprider]

Feel free to take it to 25 and we can come back with pressure support and the collar and see if we can keep it lower. If you're comfortable, so am I.

[Johnnyde94]

I have the collar so today I’ll keep the settings the same unless you have a recommendation on the PS and I’ll see from there. I think that is the more scientific option, however I may end up raising it anyway because we would still see if the pressure goes down anyway. If I were to increase to 25 what do you think the ps should be at?

[staceyburke]

With PS you add PS+Epap = IPAP So raising the top number does not change Pressure support - you can change it if you want but if you change more than one setting at a time, you don't know the which caused the change in your events.

For instance mine is PS 5.4 over 8.0 so my normal pressure would be 13.4 and my max pressure is what you set 25 (mine is 18)

[Johnnyde94]

I though ps was just the largest difference between ipap and epap
So if my min is 10 and max is 20 my starting will be 10+4 so 14 as my min with 10

[Gideon]

PS is the current difference, PS = IPAP - EPAP