scary apnea symptoms and overwhelmed with data

[DariaVader]

Yes! you got that right! I reported real pain to the DR. . I know my body best. He said maybe the chest discomfort is ASTHMA ? really?? come on.... I told him I dont have asthma. ..I do have chronic rhinitis and some allergies.I told him I think it is the pressure changes. Hes not convinced.

The doc shouldnt be diagnosing asthma unless he heard wheezing! Asthma is certainly a side effect of allergies, and I can easily see it could be exacerbated by positive airway pressure. Are you using a humidifier? heated hose? what settings?

[Ghost1958]

anytime I make a change on my machine settings or even switch masks Ill toss a few CAs for a night or three. And I do not have Central Apnea according to all the wires stuck to me at titration or during my home test.

If you can look at your CAs on a graph see if its a flat line of no breathing and I do mean flat. If there is any inhaltion at all even just a couple of tiny spikes in it then the machine is false flagging CAs which they do unfortunately.

A CA by definition is your brain saying to not breathe for that period of time and there should be no effort to breathe during a CA which means a flat line in the flow graph for 10 seconds.

If you have tiny rises in the flow graph during a CA it aint a CA.

Also and this could just be me but pressure has nothing do with my CAs that are actual real ones. I may toss more of em at low pressures. When the pressure is up i seldom ever see one.

[TheManseHen]

Greetings Evie1,
I've got zip to add to the good ideas and advice that has been said. Just saying welcome. It's always nice to have another female to add to our numbers. The guys are great but I have a suspicion that we women are more likely to be undiagnosed longer and underdiagnosed as a gender because we seem to manifest apnea a bit differently.

It is easy to become overwhelmed with the charts and numbers and "what should I do with the settings" in the early days of using them. I know I was. As this group generally (and very wisely I've learned) tends to recommend slow changes, modest changes, and then letting things sit a few days before next change, give yourself some time and breathing room. (NO pun intended. Arggh) It can help to be sure you are limiting the time you read posts/think about numbers/apnea each day, or when you do it, so that you are sure to have some down time from the topic. For me, I got to feeling like I was eating living breathing apnea/c-pap/and so on. Thankfully that feeling has settled down some now that I'm determined to not "over" analyzes knowing that I'm going to sit with my settings at least 5 days each change. Doing so has given me some nice results.

Sounds like you are on the right track and this group is the cat's pajama's when it comes to helpfulness!

Susan
The Manse Hen