New Member Intro and OSCAR charts

[DaveInDenver]

       


Hi, I'm Dave, and I'm <Humor Mode: ON> an apneaholic. I've been on the wagon for 9 straight days now. I'm proud of that. It makes me feel good.

I'm 60 years old. I've lost 35 lbs over the last 4 months. Now I'm 6'2", 208 lbs.  

I was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea about 20 years ago. I used a CPAP for a while back then but ended up with MRSA pneumonia. I think it's likely the DME company gave me a used machine that had MRSA in/on it. I tossed the machine after I got out of the hospital and have been ignoring the apnea for the last 20 years. However, I couldn't sleep on my back AT ALL, and sleeping on my side had started to hurt my hips and shoulders to the point it drove me to start all this back up again. 

I did a home sleep study in February 2023 and was rediagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea. I don't have a copy of the study, but it's on my list to get. Working with the DME vendors has been a mixed bag. I aborted the paperwork with the first one when I couldn't opt out of their marketing program and their sharing my contact info with their marketing partners.  I was told I had to opt in to get the equipment and that I'd need to call "the number" later to opt out.  I noped out of that one.  The 2nd DME vendor ended up being very close to my home and provided an almost painless experience.

So, 6 months later, I've joined the Borg Collective. Assimilation has been easier than I thought it would be. I'm at 100% compliance. I'm able to sleep on my back again....FINALLY! And the AI has come down from over 30 to usually under 1.

It took me a week of searching and reading here to work up the courage to stick a SD card into my ResMed AirSense 11. Here's my first OSCAR chart. Any suggestions or observations would be appreciated.  The one thing I noted from last night is I had a leak during some big event when the pressure went way up. I may make a small adjustment to the headgear strap length, but the occasional leak like that doesn't concern me too much. Should it?

[gainerfull]

Hi Dave, welcome to the message board. The first thing that stands out to me is your minimum pressure may be too low. From the chart I can't tell if you're using EPR on 2 or 3 but would recommend setting your minimum pressure to 7cmH20 so that you get EPR full time. Other than that the leak data looks good and it sounds like you have a good attitude about your cpap therapy so my best advice is to keep it up!

One thing that has really helped out my cpap therapy is sleeping with my upper torso elevated and the results are backed by science:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5700252/

It may be something worth considering if you're curious. One thing to mention is your tidal volume is on the low side - do you have any lung issues to speak of?

[DaveInDenver]

Thanks for your insights and suggestions.  I'll change the EPR setting and see how I like it.

Pillow/incline: Over the last 10 years I've gravitated towards a thin pillow suited for my side sleeping preference. Now that I'm on my back most of the time I think it *is* time to explore an inclined position. Thanks for that article.

As noted, I had MRSA pneumonia that almost killed me 20 years ago. The doc said there was some lung scaring and that I'd never be a world class athlete, but I got the impression the impact was fairly minimal. I don't have breathing problems when walking stairs, biking, or hiking here in the Colorado altitude. I'll do some reading about tidal volumes and get educated.

Thanks again!!