Starting My Therapy

[trailrider]

Believe it or not, you will get used to your mask and hose. Eventually you'll look forward to it because you know you will have a great night.

Hang in there and work out the little things. It takes time to find your personal sweet spots for everything.

[WSHenry]

Hi,

Good to hear it's having positive effects on your quality of life! Yes, you'll find the "sweet spots" for pressures, mask preference and fitting and so on, but will have some nights better than or worse than the "average". I recently added another nasal pillows mask to my arsenal, in order to give my nose a break from the airfit p10, and both the leak rate and ahi went up.

[AlanE]

Thanks TrailRider and WSHenry.

@WSHenry, like that avatar. it reminds me of how I used to feel every morning when I woke up, pre-cpap.

You know, my wife told me that people eat an average of eight spiders a year in our sleep. I know that to not be true but hey, another reason to wear a mask right?

P.S. Had a better night last night. 4.25ahi.

[AlanE]

Question on the auto-start/stop. Does that turn off the machine if you stop breathing? or what about stop breathing with a leak?

[retired_guy]

I have not heard of it being that contrary, but it's not a feature I particularly care for. They made a really cute little button on the top of the machine that works really well, so for me I think the best setting for the auto start/stop features is off.

[trailrider]

Mine autostops when I take the mask off: i.e. unimpeded leak for 15 seconds. I've had CAs and other stops during the night and no problems. The machine keeps up the pressure and stays on.

I just have to not roll over twice and drag it off the night table. That is less helpful for restful sleep.

[AlanE]

I bet it would be. My AHI went up to 8.something last night. I'm changing back to the large pillows. I actually had less leakage with those than the mediums for some reason. I'm going to run it another 6 more days and see if the AHI improves. I'll have 12 days of data with EPR2 and 12 using EPR3 using both pillows.

[JVinNE]

I'm surprised that they did not prescribe an ASV machine for you when you have that many centrals. I had a central score of 5.1 and I got an ASV.

[AlanE]

I would be guessing as to why they picked this machine for me. During my sleep study they said I responded well to all levels of pressure. Maybe that had something to do with it? It is becoming more obvious that they'll at least need to raise the pressure. Or I will, but will wait until my next visit with my sleep doc.
Interesting machine the ASV. Have you tried other machines?

[AlanE]

Okay been awhile. Saw the doc yesterday and showed her the sleepyhead graphs. She was interested in how I did that. She smiled when I said I have a program that can read the data off the card. She asked me to send her a 30-day summary next month. I showed her where I keep bumping up against the max pressure setting and suggested maybe going to 15. She agreed but she said I'll have to keep an eye on the data because increasing pressure has a habit of increasing central apneas.

BTW - The cell modem on the A10 seems to have died. It's been a yellow circle with a line through it for a couple days now. I hope the Flashair didn't cause that.

Anyway, I went into the 'super secret' menu and changed my pressure to 15. It seems to have done exactly that. Lowered my HA, OA and increased CA.



Really need to remember that Sleepyhead only likes the left (primary) monitor when doing screen shots. Took a nice picture of the forum. lol

I realize this is one day but will be interesting to see if this pattern continues.