First full night with CPAP (help needed)

[vsmitherin]

Hello,

Thank you to anyone taking the time to look at my Oscar data / sleep report and willing to provide any insight. I really appreciate it. I was recently diagnosed with moderate sleep apnea through a watchpat one at-home sleep study. My pAHI was 20 and pRDI was 24 with o2 nadir of 92%. I have an in-lab overnight sleep study scheduled in July.

I bought the AirSense 11 last week and have been using it since. I struggled to keep the mask on for the first few nights and managed to sleep an entire night with it last night. My AHI seems reasonably low but woke up feeling very tired, maybe even more so than I have in the past without the machine. Again thanks so much. Let me know if I should provide any additional info.

I struggle with unexplained daytime fatigue, depression, anxiety, morning headaches, nighttime sweating, low testosterone. I woke up this morning with a headache. I plan on trying a few different masks and shaving my beard as that may be causing irritation at night. I chose the settings on the machine based on reading different posts on the sleep apnea subreddit.

Thanks again!    

       

[ejbpesca]

Adapting to PAP therapy is a challenge. It disturbs sleep until adaptation arrives which can be weeks or months. (4 months for me)  Getting the pressures to optimum settings is a challenge also.  Your future in-lab Sleep Study will most likely include a pressure-setting prescription.  

Your AHI includes a high count of CAs (Clear Airway) apneas that commonly emerge at the beginning of PAP therapy and with changes to pressure settings and/or EPR changes.  With time, hopefully, CAs lessen and sleep quality improves.

The pressure jumps the APAP is doing as shown on your pressure graph also disturb sleep.  The goal will be to get the Red pressure line to smooth out once an optimum Min. pressure is found.

What you can do right now is run the mask fit test, move your head around some during the test, and twitch your mouth/nose to see if the mask maintains a seal.  Your Leak Rate while not over the acceptable limit is high and Large Leaks are occurring that may be the cause of some of the pressure jumps that also disturb sleep.

If CAs are the dominant event type found by the in-lab sleep study, a different type of machine may be prescribed.  Again, they can be temporarily produced by beginning PAP therapy which very well may be their source at this time.

Your median (Med) pressure is 7.78 therefore setting Min. pressure to 8 is a consideration.
Your 95% pressure is 9.36 which makes lowering Max. pressure to 10 a consideration but waiting on the in-lab study results may be best.  Videos from CPAP Reviews include a discussion of optimum pressure settings and how Med and 95% are used to fine-tune settings.  It is very early for you to be fine-tuning so that is for future reference.

One week is a short time at PAP therapy.  Hopefully, CAs will reduce as you adapt, pressure will settle and sleep quality will increase.