[Pressure] New CPAP user

[tjmaz1222]

       
Greetings fellow CPAPers!  My name is Tom, I'm a 54 yr old guy from CT that was recently diagnosed with severe obstructive apnea.  Something I should've addressed a long time ago.  I'd like to share a couple screenshots with the board.  My first night was friday night and last night I tweaked the pressures on my machine up a bit.  Just like to get some feedback from people who have the experience interpreting the Sleepyhead data.

Just to give my background.  I had an in home sleep study done July 31st. The results were very eye opening to say the least.  35 respiratory events laying on my right side and a whapping 72 events per hour laying on my back.  Like i said, I was long overdue for getting equipped with a machine!

[Sleeprider]

Hi Tom, Tom here. Congrats on getting started on CPAP. I think you can look forward to a lot of improvement in the near future. I think your pressure is going to stabilize right around 11 cm but I also think that between the clustering of obstructive events we are seeing here, and the fact you have a high rate of apnea while sleeping on your back, that you are a candidate for a soft cervical collar. Basically we're looking to keep your airway in an unobstructed position, so we use this approach for positional apnea.

We have a lot of threads on soft cervical collars, and a lot of members have benefited using them to reduce apnea without using higher pressure to resolve events. The biggest problem is as you relax, your chin drops to your chest increasing airway restriction. This accounts for hypopnea and obstructive apnea. You can try it while sitting in a chair and just letting your head relax and fall towards your chest. You might notice the increased restriction and difficulty in breathing. Anyway, that's my take at this point. You are much better off than untreated, but we want to see some improvement in the event rate.

[tjmaz1222]

Thanks for the input Sleeprider!  Will have to try a collar.