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New CPAPer - Thoughts on OSCAR Report - Printable Version

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New CPAPer - Thoughts on OSCAR Report - clayc - 01-28-2021

Hello!

I was recently diagnosed with mild OSA and have finally gotten my machine up and running and data into OSCAR. I have been struggling to get to a setup that allows me to sleep through the night. Last night was my first relatively good night of sleep with the machine running. I still did not feel like I was able to sleep that well, maybe that's just needing to get used to wearing the mask. 

Anyway, now that I'm at least able to get through the night with the mask on, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions about my settings based on what's in the OSCAR report.

Also - A huge thank you to everyone who contributes to this forum and the developers of OSCAR. Both have been an invaluable resource to me over the last few weeks.


RE: New CPAPer - Thoughts on OSCAR Report - staceyburke - 01-29-2021

A couple of thoughts. A full face mask is used if you are a mouth breather - I am so I have one BUT if you can sleep and breath through your nose you would be more comfortable with a nasal pillow or nasal cradle mask. The less you have on your face the easier it is to wear. 

Your main events are CA. That is short for central apnea. A central is when there is NO obstruction and you just stop breathing. It isn’t as
 Scary as it sounds, any time you hold your breath would be a central. When you are asleep your body needs to breath not only to get oxygen but to get rid of CO2. If the Cpap is working well you are getting more oxygen and expelling more CO2. So your body pauses breathing. But that makes restful sleep hard to achieve. 

As your body gets use to Cpap therapy you will have less central but it takes a while. So in the mean time we try to reduce CA events by narrowing the difference between the inhale (max pressure) and exhale (min pressure)

To do that I would do 2 things. First turn off EPR. Second set the min to 8. That should help the centrals.


RE: New CPAPer - Thoughts on OSCAR Report - clayc - 01-29-2021

Thanks very much for the feedback! My doctor originally prescribed max EPR, so I had been playing around with that setting. Interestingly, I turned EPR up last night and the numbers (and my sleep) were noticeably worse.

What you're saying about the pressure differential makes total sense to me. I'll give that a try and report back. Thanks!