Still sleepy after 8 months of CPAP

[V1nce]

[attachment=66351]
Hello everyone,

I’m a 47-year-old male and have been using a CPAP machine since last November. Although I seem to sleep well at night, I continue to experience significant bouts of daytime exhaustion. Sometimes it's severe enough that I fall asleep unexpectedly for a few minutes. I’m not sure if this is an unrelated problem, or if my CPAP settings or sleep apnea could have something to do with it.

Originally, my pressure settings were prescribed at 5-15, but I felt the starting pressure was too low. I've since adjusted it to 11-15. I’ve attached my OSCAR data from last night. Could my excessive daytime sleepiness be an issue with my settings, or should I be looking at other causes?

Any advice or insights from your experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for your time.

Equipment:
ResMed AirSense 10
AirTouch F20 Mask.

   
   

[Narcil]

Hello everyone,

I’m a 47-year-old male and have been using a CPAP machine since last November. Although I seem to sleep well at night, I continue to experience significant bouts of daytime exhaustion. Sometimes it's severe enough that I fall asleep unexpectedly for a few minutes. I’m not sure if this is an unrelated problem, or if my CPAP settings or sleep apnea could have something to do with it.

Originally, my pressure settings were prescribed at 5-15, but I felt the starting pressure was too low. I've since adjusted it to 11-15. I’ve attached my OSCAR data from last night. Could my excessive daytime sleepiness be an issue with my settings, or should I be looking at other causes?

Any advice or insights from your experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for your time.

Equipment:
ResMed AirSense 10
AirTouch F20 Mask.

your charts look very good, machine says only 3 events for the night... i think your settings are dialed in.

i would start looking at other causes.

[V1nce]

Thanks. I think you're right. I just wonder if maybe my pressure settings are set too high, and that is making me feel sleepy during the day. I'm not sure if that's possible, though.

[Deborah K.]

You could drop your low-pressure setting to 7 and see if that helps you feel better.  It can't hurt to try.

[PeaceLoveAndPizza]

I agree with Deb about changing your min pressure, but would take it one step further and also suggest trying it a bit higher at 13 or 14, and also lower as she suggested. 

What I see are a number of micro-arousals, seen in the spikes on the flow rate graph. What we want to figure out is whether a bit more or less pressure, a bit less EPR, or even a fixed pressure, would help resolve some of them. The wider spikes are likely from movement or position changes, the thin ones are the micro-arousals. Whether they are UARS or not requires further testing. Note that not all of those spikes are sleep impacting, but reducing them can help with getting quality sleep.

Also, read the following article on sleep hygiene. Quite often overall sleep quality is affected as much by how we prepare for bed as it is by how we sleep. It is worth a review to see if anything stands out.

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene