A Little Depressed by Recent Numbers

[PaulaO2]

Duct tape a tennis ball to a shirt. I'd not recommend duct taping it to your back. Unless you want to wear it until it comes off on its own.

[zimlich]

People may also have more events during REM sleep.
Mary

[robgb]

I'm finding that I will have a big number of events during about a half hour period, then the rest of the night is fairly eventless, with maybe one "flair-up" toward the end of the morning.

Last night, at around 1:30 a.m. I woke up, checked the clock and purposely rolled onto my back to sleep. I wanted to see how that would correspond with the cpap stats. Turns out that was exactly the time I had my biggest "flair-up." I remember waking up again about twenty minutes later and rolling onto my side. Sleep was normal after that.

[Sleepster]

I think that decades of untreated OSA has conditioned me to never sleep on my back. I can't do even it if I try!

I did somehow mange to sleep on my back for a bit during my sleep study titration. They advised my pressure be set at 13 cm. No need for that now, though, as I never sleep on my back. My doctor lowered it to 11 cm, and then to 10 cm. I raised it back up to 11 cm to lower my hypopnea index.

[robgb]

The hypopnea is what concerns me most. My stats show that this seems to be the real problem. OSA is fairly low and central is almost non-existent.

[Sleepster]

The hypopnea is what concerns me most. My stats show that this seems to be the real problem. OSA is fairly low and central is almost non-existent.

You're new to CPAP therapy, correct? Call your doctor and provider and explain your concerns. Your pressure is very low at 8 cm (you lucky devil) and so it's not a big deal if they decide to raise it a tad and see how your body responds.

It's great that you're monitoring your own health. Good doctors are glad to see that.

[robgb]

Thanks, yeah, I plan to call, but want to wait a couple weeks more to see how this all shakes out. Could be that if I make a conscious (or hopefully unconscious) effort to not sleep on my back, I'll do fine.

[robgb]

Happy to say that after forcing myself not to sleep on my back last night, my AHI was 0.36 this morning with no leaks, etc. Hopefully, this will hold up for a while.

[zonk]

Happy to say that after forcing myself not to sleep on my back last night, my AHI was 0.36 this morning with no leaks, etc. Hopefully, this will hold up for a while.

congrats. sometimes avoiding sleeping on your back does the trick
put a tennis in ball in a sock and stitch or safety pin the sock to middle of back of pyjama or T-shirt. when you sleep with the sock, its painful to sleep on your back so you roll on your side. btw which Elite do you use, S8 or S9

[SPOUSE]

That 0.36 number this early in your therapy is fabulous!

Your AHI will vary a little no matter what. We use the Sleepyhead software and take notes every day to see if there is a pattern to what my husband might have had to eat or drink, how long he slept, etc. He does OK unless he sleeps on his stomach but other than that there is no real consistency that we can detect but at least we have the data there just in case.

His lowest AHI so far was 0.15 and we thought it was a software glitch we were so surprised. Sleeping longer helps assuming that you don't tend to have events in the morning. Graphs seem to show my husband's events are either right after he goes to sleep, or a clump around 3:30 in the morning, which I assume is REM sleep time for him.

How did you "force" yourself not to sleep on your back?

Happy to say that after forcing myself not to sleep on my back last night, my AHI was 0.36 this morning with no leaks, etc. Hopefully, this will hold up for a while.