Today I ordered a Devilbiss Intellipap 2 Autoadjust from one of the US suppliers online, (only older models sold here in Australia) primarily because of it's relatively low power consumption, this being important as I expect to be travelling long term with it, running it from solar & batteries. I think I need to use humidification as I'm finding the most comfortable setting on the Resmed is Humidity at 5 & the heated tube at 28 degrees.C. At 4 I got a dry throat, & at 5 & 27deg.C I got condensation waking me in the early hours. My hope is that Devibiss' pulse dose humidification will be effective without hammering my batteries too hard.
It's a pity that Sleepyhead & the Intellipap 2 don't yet play nicely together, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will change.
Anyway - to the purpose of my post...... When the Intellipap 2 arrives I'm keen to try it out on auto & am seeking advice as to pressure settings. My thinking is to have the lowest setting at the lowest the machine will go (4?) & the highest to be my prescribed pressure of 8. Hoping to find a good balance between therapeutically effective & minimising power consumption.
It appears that folk often set their upper pressure a bit higher than their prescribed pressure, but I'm uncertain why this might be, or indeed whether it is a good thing to do. The sleep technician where I had my studies done said she wasn't keen on auto machines because folk usually set the pressures too high, & that this correlated with an increase in central apneas. My very limited experience appeared to back that up. The machine hire place inadvertantly set the Resmed at a fixed pressure of 10 rather than 8, & so for the first night I had it on 10. That night I had one obstructive apnea & the rest were centrals (Clear airway events). Although a huge improvement overall my sleep study had shown no centrals at all. On subsequent nights I have reduced the pressure to 8 & although still getting a few centrals, the number has reduced. (Both in quantity & length) - most apneas, obstructive & central now show between 10 & 20 seconds. Longest in sleep study was 81 seconds.
I welcome any thoughts on auto machine pressure settings, & would also like to take the opportunity just to say thanks. I've spent a bit of time reading posts on this forum & have found it very useful.
Cheers
Cuppa