Apnea Board Forum - CPAP | Sleep Apnea
Help for a friend - Printable Version

+- Apnea Board Forum - CPAP | Sleep Apnea (https://www.apneaboard.com/forums)
+-- Forum: Public Area (https://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Forum-Public-Area)
+--- Forum: Main Apnea Board Forum (https://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Forum-Main-Apnea-Board-Forum)
+--- Thread: Help for a friend (/Thread-Help-for-a-friend)



Help for a friend - Fliction - 04-16-2022

Hello,

You guys helped me a while back on getting started, thank you so much.  It has changed my life.  I am now trying to help a friend out.  He is 51 years old, 5' 11" 330 lbs.  Heavy smoker.  In the past he suspected possible sleep apnea.  Last year he did a home sleep study, it came back negative so it just kind of died there. Around 6 weeks ago, he had foot surgery.  Since then, he said he absolutely cannot sleep.  In the past, he never had a time sleeping for a normal amount of time.  Now he can not even get 2 hours in at a time.  Those close to him have heard him snore pretty bad.  He went back to the doc and now has a "real" sleep study scheduled for 2 weeks from now, then a doc visit to follow a week after that.  In the mean time, I had an old AirSense 10 I let him use.  He had severe problems with leaking with F20 because of a big nose, however, the leaks are mostly gone now with a F30.  He has tried it now for 3 days in a row.  He still cannot get any sessions in longer than around 1.75 hours.  After looking at his Oscar data, it definitely does not look good to me.  He appears to be waking up from sleeping when not even in an event.  I just find it weird that this has happened only since a foot surgery.  Could anesthesia cause problems with sleep apnea long term?  I have advised him to stick with those sleep study and doc appointments and treat this very seriously.  In the meantime, do you guys see anything we can do as far as settings or anything else that might be able to help him sleep?

Here are the last the nights data at the top, with the last 2 pics being zoomed in on 2 different short periods he slept during day 1.

Thanks in advance!

Last 3 pics


RE: Help for a friend - Gideon - 04-16-2022

Is he using a cervical collar? What about his pillow situation, 1 vs. 2 pillows, less firm, flatter. All trying to keep his neck straight.
The events are clustered indicating a positional issue with neck, we often refer to it as chin tucking. IMHO this is the first thing that must be resolved. Many use a soft cervical collar to do this. see the link in my signature.

Have him try that. Note: most doctors will miss this.


RE: Help for a friend - Fliction - 04-16-2022

He is not using a cervical collar.  That is a I (or him) are used to.  We will check out your resources.  One question however.  If these clustered events we related to that, shouldn’t a session show to be interrupted (waking up) during an event and not when things appear to be going well?

Oh, and he’s using 1 pillow, medium.  No recent changes.