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Today's update: a little frustrating and a move in the wrong direction, but I have to remind myself that there will be better nights and worse nights, and that anything under five is still good. Better to try and focus on the things I can control. One of them is leak rate, which is worse than last night's. I'm going to double check all my hoses tonight and reseal my straps...
Anyone else use an F20? Or is there a better full face mask someone would recommend? I like the full masks because I'm a mouth breather at night.
12-02-2024, 08:21 PM (This post was last modified: 12-02-2024, 08:23 PM by Deborah K..)
RE: Help with Optimizing Settings
I did forget to provide the link. Here it is. Hmm. Sorry, I can't get this board to take the address, so I'll spell it out on different lines, and you can put them together and search for the site:
https://www
a DME-owned forum .com/
CPAP-Sleep-Apnea-Forum.html
I copied the three lines as one thing and tried it It works!
P.S. Your leak rate is nice and low. Don't even worry about it.
Machine: ResMed AirCurve 10 Vauto
Mask: Bleep DreamPort Sleep Solution and F&P Nova Micro
Okay, I'll try that link out. Thank you so much! And I'll try not to worry about my leak rate, haha. Last night was better than the night before. As much as I'd like to chase the almighty <1 AHI, I have to remind myself that less than 5 is good, especially given that 15 is what I started with, and that my numbers will get better as the centrals disappear.
Last night's results. Again, I think this number is being skewed by the fact that I definitely remember waking up (or at least, half waking up) before my alarm went off. So I suspect the numbers after 5AM are possibly indicative of some sleep wake junk. It's a hard habit to break, but just a sign that I really need to get out of bed when I wake up, regardless of when my alarm goes off.
No results from last night. I was doing another at-home sleep test-- this time, for my pulmonologist. It'll be interesting to see how the data compares to CPAP treatment. I definitely had a harder time getting to sleep last night; I was nervous about not having my CPAP. I'm struggling with anxiety right now and that didn't help one bit, but I made it through the night
No results from Thursday because I forgot to put the SD card in! Which really stinks because the machine showed that night as being .6 AHI, my lowest yet! But Friday night was very good, too. I don't even want to say anything more about the results because I'm afraid I'll jinx it! Just look for yourselves and you can see the changes from previous nights.
Well, it looks like I jinxed it...I tried narrowing down my range/adjusting EPR to see if I could reduce some of the events. Not only did that clearly not work, I had some massive leak rates last night for some reason, and I can't figure out why it jumped up at 1:22 AM. Although interestingly enough, that jump in leak rate coincided with a (temporary) stop in events...
Back again to report on my last three days. 1.2 AHI is a pretty good number to have consistently. I think I must be very sensitive to changes in pressure. Perhaps if I slowly (say, by .2cm every few days) raise the minimum and lower the maximum pressure, I can eliminate some of these events and get it down? Would anyone like to weigh in?
Very slightly raised and lowered maximums. Unfortunately, the last three days' results have kind of been all over the place due to pesky centrals, some large leaks, and what appears to be sleep-wake junk. Last night I readjusted my mask to make sure it was tight, and my results were very good! (I've been getting some sub 1 AHIs over the last week, but my average tends to hover in the 1-2 AHI range. Pretty good, especially given that I did another sleep study through my pulmonologist and found that my results were actually 30 AHI per hour, as opposed to 15 from the original. At least I'm getting treated!
That being said... I made the mistake of telling my pulmonologist I was trying to titrate myself. Never again. She passive aggressively asked if I had been to medical school for 8 years, then told me that 4-20cm works for everyone, that low pressure doesn't cause issues with OAs, and that high pressure doesn't cause issues with CAs. Never in my life have I been treated so poorly by a doctor who was just... flat out wrong. She sent me home with another prescription for APAP 4-20cm and said come back in a year.
Well, I won't be coming back. I'll be looking for a sleep specialist who actually knows what they're talking about. And I'm not going to settle for yearly appointments. I don't want to treat this myself for a year with no professional guidance, I want professional eyes on my sleep reports to help catch things I miss!
Anyway. Rant over. The number of events per hour, I'm happy with. My only concern is the aerophagia... it's not painful, but the burping and flatulence is pretty embarrassing. As much as I like where my numbers are at, I think I need to keep slowly experimenting to see if I can get the amount of air I swallow down. I'm using a full face mask. Any ideas?
Your charts look great overall. You could try lowering your upper pressure limit to 12 and see if that helps with the aerophagia. If it doesn't work, try 11.4 to 11.4.
Machine: ResMed AirCurve 10 Vauto
Mask: Bleep DreamPort Sleep Solution and F&P Nova Micro
I did forget to provide the link. Here it is. Hmm. Sorry, I can't get this board to take the address, so I'll spell it out on different lines, and you can put them together and search for the site:
Which really stinks because the machine showed that night as being .6 AHI, my lowest yet! But Friday night was very good, too. I don't even want to say anything more about the results because I'm afraid I'll jinx it! Just look for yourselves and you can see the changes from previous nights.
