changed pressure question

[Dormeo]

You had a flurry of CAs at the end of one night, possibly due to some wakefulness. You had a bunch of OAs another night that you suspect were positional. And at the very low pressure, your flow limitations appear to have been more severe.

Your basic question is whether your apnea has gone away, and unfortunately there is no reason to think it has. Some people are successfully treated at low pressures. For example, my sleep study showed an AHI of 23, but it is almost always below 1 at low pressures. Other people with moderate apnea might require very high pressures to get the same results.

I don’t have the expertise to be confident about recommending settings, but in your place I would would stick with a minimum of 6 or 7 and address any positional issues. I see you changed your EPR settings around; given your FLs, you might want to try a setting of 3 and see how that goes.

One thing you haven’t mentioned is how rested you are feeling. Could you let us know? If you’re feeling good, I wouldn’t worry too much about fine-tuning.

[mesenteria]

I am not sure what you are saying.

Bonjour meant the following, if I may be so bold:

"We like to see consistent report data, but yours are typical for people who have emergent central apnea....consistently inconsistent.  Each night is different.
In order to help you, we need as much information about your diagnosis and your history in treatment as you feel comfortable providing.  Keep to one thread.  Don't start new threads because it is difficult for continuity for readers intent upon helping you."  That's, I believe, the gist of what he intended.  He's a busy guy, very active and helpful here, and maybe tried to cram in one more helpful tip. 

[Gideon]

Nailed it

[Sleepy8989]

I am not sure what you are saying.

Bonjour meant the following, if I may be so bold:

"We like to see consistent report data, but yours are typical for people who have emergent central apnea....consistently inconsistent.  Each night is different.
In order to help you, we need as much information about your diagnosis and your history in treatment as you feel comfortable providing.  Keep to one thread.  Don't start new threads because it is difficult for continuity for readers intent upon helping you."  That's, I believe, the gist of what he intended.  He's a busy guy, very active and helpful here, and maybe tried to cram in one more helpful tip. 

I have only done one post.

[OpalRose]

I am not sure what you are saying.

Bonjour meant the following, if I may be so bold:

"We like to see consistent report data, but yours are typical for people who have emergent central apnea....consistently inconsistent.  Each night is different.
In order to help you, we need as much information about your diagnosis and your history in treatment as you feel comfortable providing.  Keep to one thread.  Don't start new threads because it is difficult for continuity for readers intent upon helping you."  That's, I believe, the gist of what he intended.  He's a busy guy, very active and helpful here, and maybe tried to cram in one more helpful tip. 

I have only done one post.

Right, this is the only thread you started. I checked to be sure.
I think bonjour was just trying to look ahead and give you a tip for you to keep posting your data in this thread instead of starting a new one.

[Sleepy8989]

You had a flurry of CAs at the end of one night, possibly due to some wakefulness. You had a bunch of OAs another night that you suspect were positional. And at the very low pressure, your flow limitations appear to have been more severe.

Your basic question is whether your apnea has gone away, and unfortunately there is no reason to think it has. Some people are successfully treated at low pressures. For example, my sleep study showed an AHI of 23, but it is almost always below 1 at low pressures. Other people with moderate apnea might require very high pressures to get the same results.

I don’t have the expertise to be confident about recommending settings, but in your place I would would stick with a minimum of 6 or 7 and address any positional issues.  I see you changed your EPR settings around; given your FLs, you might want to try a setting of 3 and see how that goes.  

One thing you haven’t mentioned is how rested you are feeling. Could you let us know?  If you’re feeling good, I wouldn’t worry too much about fine-tuning.

 Feel rested most days. Some days are a little worse than others. 

Pretty new to this, what are flow limitations?

Thanks for the feedback.

[Melman]

Here is a good discussion of flow limitations: http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...Limitation

[Sleepy8989]

Here is my most recent night.  I included a zoomed in view.  

What is that long flat line at 00:23:00 on the zoomed in view?  

How does it look? overall?

According to my sleep study, most of my events were hypopnea's?  What does that mean exactly?

Thanks for your help.

[Melman]

The long straight line was the time you were not breathing due to the OA. If you click on the events tab above the AHI reading it will list events by type. Click on obstructive and it will show how many seconds each OA lasted in seconds (in parentheses). Overall your results look good.

[Sleeprider]

You seem to be doing pretty good here and I’ll comment on your original question. Your fixed CPAzpbpressure was probably set at your 90% pressure which is standard practice. Lower pressure works pretty well go a lot of people and very high fixed pressure is kind of an archaic approach in an era of good auto CPAP, but as I said it’s common.

That said I like a minimum of 8.0 for you, and would stick with EPR 2 for now.