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Not feeling much of a change... - Printable Version

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Not feeling much of a change... - yungbill - 01-18-2021

Hi everyone.

I started cpap treatment in August of last year, and after a tough first couple of months and a pressure adjustment I finally got used to using it every night/all night. I dare say it would be more difficult to fall asleep without it than with it.

My main concern now is that I haven't felt or seen much of an improvement in my daily life. I still feel tired constantly unless I have caffeine, and take naps regularly. My sleep doctor says that my numbers look good but I'm looking to see if there could be improvements made. Below are a couple of readouts from this week. I have an unsophisticated understanding of the data so I only see that the apneic events are on average lower than my diagnoses.

Also it's only been 5 months of treatment so far, and only three of those were consistent. In summary if you can offer any help or have some wisdom to impart that would be much appreciated!


RE: Not feeling much of a change... - Sleeprider - 01-18-2021

Your doctor was so smart, he set your auto CPAP to fixed pressure mode at 7.5 and left you stranded there. Things are mainly obstructive, and you will benefit from changing to Auto mode and setting pressure to minimum 8.0, maximum 14.0 and whatever Flex setting you are using should be no greater than 2 (not 3). Not impressed with Philips machines for most people, but we can get them optimized a lot better than this. The good news is, your leak rate is low. Minimize the daily calendar on the left column and we can tell a lot more about what is going on. Just click the triangle in the date line or use the view menu.


RE: Not feeling much of a change... - yungbill - 01-18-2021

Thank you for responding!

I will say that my original titration session indicated a pressure of 6 would be sufficient, but after the first couple of months of poorish results my doctor allowed the machine to figure out a better setting which resulted in the number you see now. I'm not sure if that's relevant to your recommendation, but thought I would make it known.

What does the flex number represent?

And here are the snapshots without the calendar


RE: Not feeling much of a change... - SarcasticDave94 - 01-18-2021

Flex on a Respironics is supposed to add some comfort by allowing some exhale pressure relief. I've not had one that used Flex, but I see comments here it's somewhat helpful but not nearly as good in usage as a ResMed EPR on their AutoSet.


RE: Not feeling much of a change... - yungbill - 01-18-2021

Ahh gotcha, thank you!

My flex setting is at 2. Yeah that was one of the most uncomfortable aspects getting used to the machine, was the pressure on exhale. I think it has helped me so far.


RE: Not feeling much of a change... - SarcasticDave94 - 01-18-2021

FWIW comments reveal that flex 3 isn't nearly as good as flex 2 like you're using now.