Still evidence of positional apnea?

[mellocello]

Hey all,

I'm still struggling with positional sleep apnea and unable to get my AHI into the zone where I feel great in the morning.  I'm so fucking frustrated by this.

1. A collar doesn't seem to work very well for me, and it's very uncomfortable
2. I don't seem to have any substantial impact from a oral device
3. I've tried a cpap pillow, but I don't think that's working that well either
4. Swapping to a different mask for me did happen to help a bit (from a P10 to a Swift FX Nasal Pillow CPAP Mask)

I just need something that will give me a consistent AHI of < 2 every day.  Why is this so hard.

Should I get another sleep study?  Any suggestions are appreciated.

[CorruptAlligator]

For positional apnea, you don't want to be using a CPAP pillow as it's too high of a pillow. You want to go with a shallow pillow, or if you can, no pillow (if it doesn't cause any aches in the morning). Perhaps the height of the collar is too short?

Also, you should look into why it's clustering toward the end of the night. Because there is no clusters in the beginning. Perhaps you are positioning yourself in a particular way toward the 2nd half of the sleep?

[mellocello]

Thanks for the reply.  I'll swap back out to a normal pillow.  It's possible I'm moving into a more fetal position in the middle of the night.  Perhaps I can have my wife help me out with that.

[CorruptAlligator]

The collar is suppose to help from any excessive bending of neck/chin, and it shouldn't matter if the body is trying to get into fetal position or not. That is, if you wear a collar of proper height based on your measurements and the collar is stiff enough to keep you from bending too much.

It sounds like you side-sleep. CPAP pillow is fine if you only side-sleep, but if you back-sleep, it causes you head to tilt downward causing chin-tuck. But also, shallow pillows doesn't work well for side-sleeping in terms of ergonomics. That is an issue I face, and I went with MyPillow, Medium fill, and it was the happy medium (until a good design for back and sleeping comes up).

I initially start with side-sleep and then my body gets tired of it at some point and go into back sleeping. I feel like I need a mini-pillow for side sleeping alongside a shallow pillow for when my body pivots into back-sleeping. I need a pillow design like this.