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After several years of CPAP therapy and having varying levels of relief, I figured I'd join a community as sleep study after sleep study has left me with not much improvement.
I use the CPAP machine all the time and like some I've tried adjusting settings to see if I am able to get any improvement. It's been exceptionally bad these last couple weeks. So any and all input would be helpful as I educate myself on OSCAR and what everything means.
Sleep Apnea has made everything harder. Brain fog, and exhaustion means that everything from powerlifting to just getting through my workday takes 300% out of me. I've seen posts on this forum before and the insight users have been able to provide and so I am hoping to be able to glean some insight and eventually contribute my own once I get a handle on the terminology (and better sleep).
Welcome! It looks as though last night you switched from APAP mode to CPAP mode toward the end of the night. You aren't using EPR, and you have some snores and some periods of heavy flow limitations. While you were in APAP mode last night, your flow limitations drove your pressures up and down. You are using auto ramp. Your leak graph is a thing of beauty.
Your obstructive events are well-controlled. You had a few central events, which is not anything to worry about.
Here are some suggestions to create a baseline that might help us. After that I'll do some explaining. Try this:
* turn off the ramp.
* use APAP mode.
* set your minimum to 7 and your maximum to 7.
* set your EPR to 3.
Even though what I'm recommending will give you a constant pressure all night, same as with CPAP mode, you'll be able to see your FLs in APAP mode, which I believe you can't in CPAP mode.
EPR (expiratory pressure relief) will drop your pressure when you exhale. By the same token, it will increase your pressure when you inhale, and that support may help to reduce your flow limitations and snores. It may also increase the number of CAs that you have, but I wouldn't worry too much about that.
Flow limitations are what they sound like: limitations to the flow of air in your airway. For some people, they don't interfere with good sleep; for others, they do. If FLs originate in your nose, EPR may not be able to help much with them, but if they originate farther down in your airway, EPR can be a boon. The pressure increase when you inhale will gently push back lax tissues in your pharynx.
Central events are pauses between breaths of 10 seconds or more, with no obstruction. They often come after arousal breathing; when they do, the arousal is usually the real problem, rather than the ensuing central event.
Give those settings a try and then post another chart, plus your sense of how the night went and what the next day feels like.
Welcome to the forum,
How did you feel during the day?
Try not to chase numbers, but how you feel.
Can you post a copy of your sleep report with your personal info redacted?
Dormeo gave some good advice.
Raise your ramp pressure to 7cm also.
I appreciate the feedback as well as the explanation of flow limitations, epr and the such! I usually use APAP but was reading and saw some benefits to CPAP. I'm kind of just trying to find footing at this point. I'll give what you recommended a try and will post what transpires!
Unfortunately I wasn't able to stick with the 7cmH2O. After three or so hours I was waking up constantly. Felt like I was teetering on falling asleep only to be woken up. I reset it to what it was before as the sleep wasn't good but at least I was able.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly worried going into the workweek with the sleep quality I've been getting, but I've attached the sleep data from last night.
Please use F12 of Fn F12 to do a screenshot, we need to see the statistics and device settings Please post again.
What was the feeling that stop you from staying asleep?
It seemed like you did ok at first.
You woke up with those really low setting also, what did it feel like when you woke up around 2:45?
You could use a minimum of 7 and maximum of 9.6 cm since you only grazed 10 cm last night.
The flow limitations are what drove your pressure up most of the night, once you went to your olde settings. These machines aggressively raise the pressure to prevent possible Hypopneas when you have these flow limitations
You had a very nice session of gentle breathing until after those large flow limitations just before midnight that you never setting down from.
You had a few more flow limitations and a very big leak and recovery gasp as you woke up.
Do you have any oxygen or heart rate monitoring devices? I wonder what was going on.
Can you post a 30-60 second close up of your first wake up, around 1 am?
Consider try some calming breathing exercises before falling back asleep.
These wake up can be extremely frustrating.
hope you get some good rest
I'd like to second the question of what was uncomfortable for you with the initial settings. It'd be really helpful to know. Also, it's hard to be sure, but it looks like you didn't try EPR of 3 during the initial settings but had EPR at 2. Is that correct?
