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Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - Printable Version

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Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - IUsedToSnore - 05-21-2020

I need some help with sleep maintenance insomnia/middle of the night insomnia.

I'm 7 months into treatment and have 100% compliance with my APAP. I do feel better to an extent, but I'm still struggling to feel functional. (There's a LOT of coffee in my life still.) My AHI is generally under 1.5.

My main issue is that after about 5 hours of sleep I wake up and can't fall back asleep for between 30 minutes to several hours. I absolutely have to go back to sleep as I typically need 8-9 hours to be functional. This has been a nightly problem for me since childhood, so it's not related to age or situation (I'm 46 now). I have implemented pretty strict sleep hygiene, and thus I'm pretty sure it's related to the Apnea. I was hoping strong APAP compliance would fix the problem, but it has not improved at all. I'm wondering if maybe this is a RERA issue or something that is subtle and that I'm not understanding.

I'm wondering if anyone has experience with fixing this type of issue? I'm so tired of being tired. Attached are a few screenshots from Oscar as well as some data from my initial sleep study. I'm happy to provide zoomed-in shots or other data if needed.


RE: Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - Gideon - 05-21-2020

Look at http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php/Sleep_hygiene


RE: Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - IUsedToSnore - 05-21-2020

Hi thank you! Yes. I have been very strict with sleep hygiene for several decades now. I worked with a therapist to get that under control (including sleep restriction) for a while, but it has not been effective. That's why I'm asking now about possible RERAs or something more breathing related.


RE: Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - Gideon - 05-21-2020

Then bring EPR in and let's knock down the flow limitations.

Try EPR=2


RE: Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - IUsedToSnore - 05-21-2020

Okay cool. I can try that.


RE: Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - IUsedToSnore - 05-21-2020

BTW - how many nights of using the EPR do you think it would take to see if that will make a difference?


RE: Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - slowriter - 05-21-2020

Hard to know.

We'll want to see what happens to your FL graph and numbers with increased EPR, and whether it increases your centrals.


RE: Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - Gideon - 05-21-2020

Show at one night. When we get where it looks promising we will let it run a while.


RE: Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - sleepyp - 05-21-2020

What physical size are you?
Your minute vent / tidal volume figures are quite low.
Those flow limits could be really impacting on you, bonjour's advice is good.
Your flow limits aren't baaaad, but at tidal volumes that low they may well be causing you issues.


RE: Help Needed - Continued Insomnia with APAP - IUsedToSnore - 05-21-2020

I'm 5'4", 125 lbs. (f)