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Clear Airway Question - Sleepwreck - 01-29-2021

Hi,

Since I figured out my mask/mouth leak problem (using a wider piece of tape to better keep my mouth closed) I have been sleeping through the night with less wakeups and nightmares. That said, I have noticed that my AHI shot up last night with several clear airway apneas. What causes these to occur and is there any way of reducing them? 

I have included my last sleep chart and my statistics. It looks like I have more CAs than OAs.

Thanks,

Sleepwreck


RE: Clear Airway Question - Crimson Nape - 01-29-2021

Now that you have taken control of your leaks, the CA's could be treatment induced.  This is caused from lower levels of CO2 than what your body is accustomed to.  Give it a few days for your body to acclimate and see if they will decrease.  If it doesn't, you can try reducing the EPR setting to find a happy medium.


RE: Clear Airway Question - staceyburke - 01-29-2021

Centrals are very irregular- one day you havre them the next you don’t. No pressure changes help. 2 things SEEMS to help. The first is just getting use to the pap therapy. They call that type of centrals as Emergence centrals because you see those when we first start therapy. The 2nd thing is the amount of change between min and max pressure. Some people need straight Cpap (both min and max pressure is the same). So I see your EPR is set to 3 and that makes the min and max 3 points higher. Some people turn off the EPR and that helps centrals. The problem with that is your flow limits will probably go up without EPR.   

It becomes a balancing act between the two. And if you have a lot of centrals (you don’t) there are more expensive pap machines designed to eliminate centrals.


RE: Clear Airway Question - SarcasticDave94 - 01-29-2021

All good info on CA. Nothing to add. See what the CA trend is in a few days something like 2, and then we can suggest actions. Include OSCAR shots and we'll see what up then.


RE: Clear Airway Question - Sleepwreck - 01-30-2021

Thanks everyone for the quick replies. I'll try EPR 2 for a few days and let you know how it goes.


RE: Clear Airway Question - multicast - 01-30-2021

Why not lower the minimum pressure by 1, too?


RE: Clear Airway Question - Gideon - 01-30-2021

You could, but with one change at a time you know what caused the results.

Typically reducing EPR, the differential pressure between inhale and exhale, will increase your CO2.levels enough to impact CA events.


RE: Clear Airway Question - Sleepwreck - 01-30-2021

I wanted to share the data from last night after reducing the EPR from 3 to 2.  The result was a very low AHI. I know this is only one data point, but I hope it worked!


RE: Clear Airway Question - OpalRose - 01-30-2021

Excellent results! But it is one night, so watch for a trend.