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Went to a Amcal Pharmacy in Australia back in December 2022, did a take home overnight test with the nose tubes/finger pulse tester thing. Subsequently got diagnosed with severe sleep apnea (33 AHIs). Got a ResMedAirSense 10 AutoSet and used in very intermittently for the first year (139 total nights between December 2022 and May 2024). Following that have used it near every night since May 2024.
Never felt happy or comfortable with the settings and started to loosely play around with it since.
I think I mouth breath in my sleep, and primarily fall asleep on my front/side.
Looking for tips on adjustment - adjusted the APAP settings on 20/03 to be Min = Average pressure, and Max = 95% pressure.
Has been pretty horrible sleep the last few nights, with Friday night and last night being particularly bad.
Your leaks are way to high, you need to correct that first and foremost. Tape your mouth or get a FF mask. After your leaks are under control I would try setting your minimum pressure to 8cm with the maximum to 10cm, also set your EPR to 3 full time. This should provide you with some more comfort. You should also quit using the ramp unless you just have to have it turned on. After using the new settings for a few days post some more charts.
Was looking through the boards/reddit before bed and came to a similar guesstimation.
Ramp was off, EPR 3 full time, and APAP range of 8.8-11 last night, will leave it like that for a few nights unless my data from last night suggests raising/lowering anything immediately?
Felt a bit like I was tossing and turning last night, wasn't a hugely deep sleep. However much better compared to the previous night.
I was able to tape my mouth - weird question, should I place the tap vertically or horizontally? Last night was vertical and I woke up feeling as if I had been drooling throughout the night (stickyish feeling lips) while my mouth felt a bit dry. Any tips on tube temp/humidity levels? Bedroom is around 23c and a fan is running overnight. Tube has one of those fleece insulators.
The Tape should be on horizontally and covering your whole mouth (no holes). I use Cover-Roll Stretch tape 2" wide and cut to length, it is available from Amazon. Your mouth is most likely dry from the air rushing out of it. When your leaks are above 24 on the OSCAR graph the CPAP can not compensate for the leaks and the CPAP is not providing you with treatment. It can also distort the AHI reading. Smaller leaks can also cause arousals. So it important to get them controlled.
Also, you are having quite a few CA events, they are most likely caused by the CPAP treatment and should go away in time. Although, if you had several CA's reported on your sleep test they could be actual Central Apneas. The ResMed air sense 10 will not treat CA's, if you could post your sleep test it may be helpful, if you do post your test do not show your name etc.
I have some Nexcare tape from 3M, will cover the entire mouth tonight and report back.
No Cervical collar - looking to test settings out prior to going and purchasing things I might/hopefully don't need.
I will try get in contact with the Pharmacy and see if I can be emailed across a copy of the take home test results. Unfortunately never had an official in-house test done with electrodes etc.
The last few weeks haven't changed too much, was still getting 3AHI average each night, with large leaks ranging up to 24, while using mouth tape.
Last night I decided to head to the pharmacy and grab a soft cervical collar, tried it out from 10-1am then on to about 3ish. This was used in conjunction with two strips of mouth tape (3m nexcare).
The 10-3am period I woke up on two separate occasions with gurgling rainout in the hose. I cleaned it out each time and tried to sleep again.
Eventually at 3am I turned down the humidity (from 8 to auto) and took of the mouth tape in an attempt to reduce the humidity.
Overall I feel not great from the defined wake-ups but the data looks good.
I will try again tonight with collar and sans tape.
Since your obstructive apnea is better controlled, consider lowering your minimum and maximum to 9 to 10.
This might help you with your leaks.
Also lower your humidity to 3, do you have a hose cover? Helps prevent rainouts.
Your leaks still compromised your therapy last night near the end.
You might need to tape or use a SomnoSeal device.
I’m going to have a crack tonight with 9.6-10.6cm before I change settings.
Its currently heading into winter so I’m assuming the rainout (first time it happened) was due to the better seal at he start of the night with collar and mouth tape.
I use a hose cover and one of those hose fishing rod holders to drape it above me.
I’m going to attempt tonight without tape and just the collar as I have a big day tomorrow and don’t want to risk a rainout again.
I believe the end of night leaks were due to the lack of tape but I’d just like to attempt without tape for a night. So how I fair with just the collar.
Following that I’ll see how the night goes and decide whether to start taping again or not.
The somnoseal looks interesting. I’ll read into it today.
Slept last night with cervical collar and no mouth tape. Was a fairly restless sleep as I was trying to sleep on my stomach whereas the previous night I was trying to sleep on back/side. Was also fairly stressed about a deadline today so was tossing and turning due to that.
Don't think I'm comfortable using a SomnoSeal, would prefer a MAD or mouthguard, or going back to taping my mouth.
Would you still recommend dropping pressure ranges down?
Something I forgot to mention yesterday was that the first half of the night I swapped down to the small nose piece for the p30i mask, as I was hoping to smaller area would allow less leaks. At 4am (3am) when I cleaned the hose for the last time and removed the mouth tape I also swapped back to the medium nose piece for the p30i - maybe this accounted for the no leaks/events for the first half of the night? (I doubt it, unfortunately I think the tape was doing the work there)
I might try the small piece again tonight to see if there's any changes and if it fairs better than the medium for leaks, however it doesn't feel as comfortable as the medium as they are too close together.
I have also been looking into swapping over to the n30i AirTouch - does anyone have any experience for it? Alternatively I am open to suggestions. I tend to fall asleep on my stomach and am quite an active sleeper, moving to sides and back throughout the night.
