Holydoc - Therapy Progress
I have just started CPAP a month ago and am learning all I can about it. I was diagnosed with moderately severe Sleep Apnea (26 AHI) using an at-home sleep study. I originally issued a ResMed 11 APAP machine at the beginning of May with a nasal mask. I have a full beard and am a mouth breather so I opted for the ResMed F20 Airtouch mask. I have been trying to use the machine every day since I was issued it.
It was just after reading the messages on this board while trying to learn about sleep apnea that I realized that my machine was sent to me with the setting of 4 - 20 cm(H20). After reading a few of the posts here, I actually moved it to 5 - 20cm just so that I would know how to do it. I then bought a SD card and downloaded OSCAR. I received the card yesterday and downloaded OSCAR about an hour ago. I have attached my first OSCAR reading and my sleep study results here.
Any and all advise would be greatly appreciated. I understand from looking at my OSCAR results that it appears I should have my minimum around 9 cms instead of 5. Besides that, I am at a loss of how to proceed. Please help me evaluate my results.
Here is my sleep study, the whole night OSCAR profile, and a zoomed in of the first OA event.
Thanks ahead of time for the help!
RE: Holydoc - Therapy Progress
Welcome to the forum,
Are you on any medications that affect your breathing or sleep?
Do you have any health issues that affect your breathing or sleep?
Your pressure is too low for an adult, set it to at least 7 cm.
Your Flow Limitations are too high and causing your pressure to increase throughout the night.
Set EPR to 3 cm full time, not ramp.
Your breaths are flattened in the zoomed in chart, these are flow limitations
Flow Limitation Is Associated with Excessive Daytime Sleepiness in Individuals without Moderate or Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea
.
Good luck
RE: Holydoc - Therapy Progress
Doug,
Thank you for your recommendations. I will make those changes now. When they sent my machine, they said they would have all the settings setup. However I soon found out that they just sent me a machine with the default settings. I am so happy that this board exists to help those like us who were basically given a machine and left on our own.
How do I reduce the flow limitations?
06-26-2025, 06:34 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-26-2025, 06:37 PM by jdougc. Edited 1 time in total.)
RE: Holydoc - Therapy Progress
Set EPR to 3 cm full time, not ramp.
EPR is the tool to deal with flow limitations.
If you feel air starved, increase the minimum pressure to 8 cm.
One of my fav cpap videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwOjeESNGIY
RE: Holydoc - Therapy Progress
jdougc,
Thank you for that video link. I now at least know how to identify a flow limitation problem just looking at the breath waves on the Flow Rate. Hopefully this one change will help flatten the Flow Limitation curves and and give me a more rounded flow rate curve.
I really do appreciate the help.
RE: Holydoc - Therapy Progress
Flow Limitations was one of the hardest things for me to grasp. Most sleep doctors and technicians ignore Flow Limitations and just say that your AHI is fine.
RE: Holydoc - Therapy Progress
Here is the OSCAR report from last night. I had two large problems last night. The dogs had issues and were acting up, and I had a bit of a clogged nose so I breathed a lot from my mouth. Even though I was woken up several times during the night,when I was asleep, I felt I slept good. The new setting definitely made my therapy much more comfortable.
As for the results, it appears that they are very similar. After a ramp time, my pressure shot all the way up to 17.54 cm and then seemed to level off at 12.94 cm for the rest of the night. Not sure what that was about. My Flow Limitations appear to be very similar to my previous night.
I will stop trying to act like I know what I am doing and leave it in everyone else's hands. How am I really doing? What changes do I need to make?
RE: Holydoc - Therapy Progress
Just looking closer at my charts, does it make sense to have a ramp-up? It appears that for 20 minutes I am sitting at a pressure of 5cm, and then when the ramp time is over, my pressure jumps up to its highest point. Is that normal? Is that really beneficial? I would think that it would be better to start at a pressure that is therapeutical rather than being possibly woken up with such a huge decrease in pressure.
Thanks again in advance for any and all inputs. I am really trying to get the best therapy possible.
06-27-2025, 09:56 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-27-2025, 09:58 AM by jdougc. Edited 1 time in total.)
RE: Holydoc - Therapy Progress
We need to see the full device settings.
Can't give you good advice without seeing them.
Raise ramp pressure to 7 or 8 cm for 5 minutes.
Raise your minimum to 10 cm. This is below you median.
The increases may help deal with the flow limitations.
RE: Holydoc - Therapy Progress
Doug,
I am going to show my ignorance here. How do I show you the "full device settings" so that you will have all the information you need? Is there a way to make OSCAR show everything you need at once or do I just need to scroll down on the left menu of OSCAR and attach another screen grab? Sorry if this question is silly. I am just trying to learn what I really need to supply each time in my OSCAR screen dumps.
