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New user having a hard time
#11
RE: New user having a hard time
AHI last night of 4.76 .. better then the 8+ AHI yesterday .. and nothing lasted over 28 seconds which is really good for me as some of my apnea's last in the 50 seconds to a minute in length range.. might be a bit lower because had some episodes flagged when I was still awake I need to discount those .. I don't use the ramp feature .. didn't like it .. so I record from the time I put my mask on .. best though there were no central's and I had taken pain medication which seems to make my AHI worse on those nights I have to take it ..

just under 8 hours of total usage which is the longest so far with just over 6 hours in one continuous usage .. slowly getting to total usage of over 8 hours .. used 2 pillows last night instead of one and it might have helped elevating my head a little more then I had been doing ..

Using the Wisp Nasal Mask I picked up last week and so far it has been the most comfortable .. just need to get the leakage down .. seem to have one big leak each night .. and that makes my leak rate go very high .. but the rest of the night was good ..

How does one eliminate those showing up when first settling in to sleep ?? So you can get a better idea of your true readings ??

This is a slow process for me it seems .. getting use to everything has been a struggle at times for me !!
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#12
RE: New user having a hard time
Using the extra pillow was a good idea. Just make sure that if you sleep on your back your chin doesn't fall forward towards your chest. Basically, if your nose closer to the ground than your ears, it's not good.
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#13
RE: New user having a hard time
If your Wisp is leaking it may be to tight.
You need to be sure the top and bottom straps are balanced and the cushion has room to expand and seal. My wisp does leak when pressure exceeds 18 cmH2O, but when things are working right it doesn't get there very often.
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#14
RE: New user having a hard time
(10-20-2014, 01:39 PM)retired_guy Wrote: Using the extra pillow was a good idea. Just make sure that if you sleep on your back your chin doesn't fall forward towards your chest. Basically, if your nose closer to the ground than your ears, it's not good.

Used the pillows in a "T" shape with the bottom one laying length wise and the top one across it so shoulders were elevated also keeping my chin up ..

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#15
RE: New user having a hard time
Welcome.
It takes time and effort to get used to things in your brave new world.
First thing? Take what your sleep doc and your DME say with a grain of salt but don't get out of hand until you read, study, digest and understand the data that your machine is giving you. And I sure hope it is giving you lots of data. And I hope that you are using a pulse oximeter to record your SpO2 (blood oxygen, sorta) all night. When you put it all together you will quickly get a pretty good idea of where your pressures need to be.
What shocked me a bit was your Rx to start with pressures at MAX and then reduce them. That is a first for me and understandably would make many folks uncomfortable wearing a blower. I'd get a second opinion if possible. I started my wife at about 8 cmH2O - 17 cmH2O and the blower seems to want to blow about 14cmH2O to keep her airway open. She is on some meds and has a few centrals during the night as well, but from what the MD Rx'd using a ResMed Elite.... to taking my spare ResMed S9 Auto with the above settings, was like day and night. AHI 85+ with the doc's settings. Dropped down to what now appears to be the 6-8 range with the Autoset. Oh, and a full face mask - Mirage Quattro (SMALL). Fit is very important.

Hang in. Educate yourself and you will soon be sleeping like a baby until you fall and fracture your ribs and spine like I did in May... then nothing is going to help you sleep well. Another round of doctors ahead of us but I don't know that there is a cure for the spine injuries. It was just a matter of time. And such a freak 1.5 foot fall that it is hard to believe. Good luck to you. Hang in there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Educate, Advocate, Contemplate.
Herein lies personal opinion, no professional advice, which ALL are well advised to seek.



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#16
RE: New user having a hard time
(10-20-2014, 04:54 PM)TorontoCPAPguy Wrote: Welcome.
It takes time and effort to get used to things in your brave new world.
First thing? Take what your sleep doc and your DME say with a grain of salt but don't get out of hand until you read, study, digest and understand the data that your machine is giving you. And I sure hope it is giving you lots of data. And I hope that you are using a pulse oximeter to record your SpO2 (blood oxygen, sorta) all night. When you put it all together you will quickly get a pretty good idea of where your pressures need to be.
What shocked me a bit was your Rx to start with pressures at MAX and then reduce them. That is a first for me and understandably would make many folks uncomfortable wearing a blower. I'd get a second opinion if possible. I started my wife at about 8 cmH2O - 17 cmH2O and the blower seems to want to blow about 14cmH2O to keep her airway open. She is on some meds and has a few centrals during the night as well, but from what the MD Rx'd using a ResMed Elite.... to taking my spare ResMed S9 Auto with the above settings, was like day and night. AHI 85+ with the doc's settings. Dropped down to what now appears to be the 6-8 range with the Autoset. Oh, and a full face mask - Mirage Quattro (SMALL). Fit is very important.

Hang in. Educate yourself and you will soon be sleeping like a baby until you fall and fracture your ribs and spine like I did in May... then nothing is going to help you sleep well. Another round of doctors ahead of us but I don't know that there is a cure for the spine injuries. It was just a matter of time. And such a freak 1.5 foot fall that it is hard to believe. Good luck to you. Hang in there.

Those are the 2 worse fractures you can have .. broken ribs are very painful .. every breath you feel !! spine fractures painful also .. small falls can be much worse then longer ones because you don't have the time to catch yourself while falling its just to quick !!

My pain comes from a dislocated Coccyx Bone. Its not operable and I will always be in pain for the rest of my life. Pain will continue to be as bad or worse but never better .. not something to look forward to !!

The initial settings of 5-4-15 would jack my IPAP up to 20 and My chest/lungs became so sore I had trouble breathing and had to stop using it for 3 days .. it over inflated my lungs .. doc reduced settings down to 4-3-8 and since have been able to use it .. the more pressure in my sleep labs led to higher central numbers 27 out of 29 an hour .. reducing the pressure has eliminated the centrals now as my machine hasn't recorded one but has probably stopped a number of them !! My apnea's can run close to a minute in length the nights my AHI is on the high side ..

It seems with central's, to reduce them pressures usually need to be reduced but its a fine line to not increase other apnea's while doing so .. I have also found the use of pain medication can make a large differences in the number of episodes each night !! and from night to night also .. I can have 2-3-4 good nights with AHI's in the .5 range and then my pain increases and my numbers shoot up to 8.45 .. those night I also have more leaks and I think its because of my restlessness on those nights of higher pain !!

Have just a finger oximeter that doesn't download but does record and save and have looked at some of the readings and going down to around 92% is the lowest I have seen .. expect to get one to be able to download to SH in the near future .. as see it should be something everyone should be watching over time ..

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#17
RE: New user having a hard time
The roller coaster ride continues .. still struggling with the mask seems I have about a 15 minute period every night that blows my leak numbers up like a balloon .. and it seems to be in the middle of my sleep and not on either ends which are good .. and I'm not having a episode during the mask leak either .. last nights was from 3:52 till 4:05 am .. nothing before it or after it .. really has me puzzled !

Leak Rate of detected mask leakage (L/min)Rate of detected mask leakage (L/min)
0.00 0.00 21.60 37.20 Time over leak redline 2.815%

My last 11 days AHI's are .81, .48, .97, 8.11, 4.75, .69, 1.56, 1.67, 6.94, 4.76, 2.45 ! You can tell the days when my pain levels are the highest and when they are controlled by my medication for my back pain. I'm not sure if my numbers are ever going to be much better then they are now .. might be able to tweak them just a little but because of the outside influence of my (Pain) and the subsequent use of pain medication I'm not sure how to go about doing it though .
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#18
RE: New user having a hard time
I see my Pulmonologist who is also my sleep doctor at the end of next week and will have 5 weeks usage of the Resmed VPAP
Adapt, the first 2 weeks I was non compliant because the initial settings over inflated my lungs and I had to stop treatment to allow my lungs to get over the soreness caused to them .. but since have used the machine 11 days of varying lengths that are getting longer as my tolerance increases.

I will lobby to keep my settings the same to help me better acclimate myself to it and my AHI numbers haven't been all that bad except nights my pain level has been higher .. as you can see from my last comment here ..
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#19
RE: New user having a hard time
Used it just over 5 hours last night and my first AHI of 0.00 .. 1 apnea 2 minutes into putting on the mask and I was still awake and then nothing afterwards .. and my leaks were less the 1% .

Pain level last night was good with no additional medication needed !!
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#20
RE: New user having a hard time
Good job Rabbit.. Were you only in bed 5 hours? If so, you really need to go to bed earlier. Otherwise keep working to insure that whenever you're in bed, the machine is connected and running.
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