raulmalik - Help in Analysing Oscar Data

[raulmalik]

Hello Everyone, Hope all of you are doing great. 
I would like to share my OSCAR data here. Kindly advice which all parameteres should be visible in the screenshot as there are a lot of them.

[Narcil]

Everything is explained here

[raulmalik]

Thank You So Much.

[raulmalik]

Hello Friends,
First of all, I would like to thank all of you for making an awesome community here. I would like to post my story here as I am distressed as no improvement is taking place in my quality of life.

p.s.- Pardon me for bad grammar as english is not my first language.

Lets Start.

I am a 1986 Born Male, going to turn 38 years in a couple of months. I was a regular alcohol consumer and Smoker type of a party person. Everything was moving on normally in my life as I used to drink and wake up fresh with normal sleep of 5-6 hours only. 

Then in 2020 (34 years old) one day something happened. I woke up and felt something was not right in my head. I still felt like I was drunk. The whole day passed but I was having a headache, brain fog , and lack of concentration. Basically it was a very messy state of mind. On that day I did not have alcohol and the next morning when I woke up, everything was fine and normal as usual.

After a couple of days I had alcohol again and the very next day I again had the same problem like, lack of concentration, brain fog, feeling drunk, felt as if something was happening in my head, i could feel the blood flowing through the veins very fast in my head. Almost had a panic attack. 

Now for the next couple of years I dealt and lived with this thing. Whenever I had alcohol the next day would turn out to be like hell. One thing I noticed was after having alcohol I did wake up many times during the night and after that had trouble going back to sleep. Also, as I have taken alcohol since my college days, this thing which is happening to me is not because of alcohol and it was because of  something else. I was having hell day after consuming alcohol and the next day after skipping alcohol i was feeling normal.

Come 2022 September. I quit alcohol and smoking completely in order to feel normal. But to my utter surprise and disappointment, this thing now became permanent. I woke up daily with a severe headache, daytime sleepiness, lack of concentration, and a feeling of being drunk, it was a feeling like I could collapse anytime and would fall down. my memory just got worse. I was unable to remember anything, I started to wake up 1-2 times every night to pee which I had never done in my entire life. 

Then I got scared and thought that maybe it's alcohol which has done this to me. So I went to the Neurologist and told him what I was feeling. He asked me if I could get a good night's sleep and I said yes. He asked me to take a sleep test as due to consuming alcohol my tongue muscles might have reduced their tightness and have become loose and fall back. That was the first time I heard of sleep apnea. Then I installed a camera next to my bed to watch myself sleeping the whole night.
What I observed was I was tossing and turning a lot and after a big snore I was getting aroused. Also my sleep was so light that even a small noise can wake me up. I showed him my home sleep study test report and he asked me to have cpap therapy. I tried cpap therapy in october 2022 for 15 days and nothing changed and I was feeling horrible. So I quit cpap. My neurologist also suggested that I take an MRI Scan of the brain. I did that and he found nothing unusual. Then he ruled out sleep apnea and said that I do not need to use the cpap machine. Got Vitamin B1 checked and it was OK. 

Now comes 2023. 
I was suffering so badly because I didn't even know what it was . Here are the things which were going through in my life to summarise it all.
1. I was feeling sleepy the whole day.
2. There was No energy in me for the whole day.
3. Even daily chores felt like a huge task for me.
4. Memory vanished as I was unable to build new memories.
5. Could not stand for more than 5-10 minutes.
6. Could not drive a bike or Car as I need to blink my eyes very fast in order to keep my eyes open and concentrate on the road.
7. I Started waking up to pee 1-2 times at night which I never had done in my entire life.
8. Lack of concentration.
9. Not Able to study anything/ in fact not able to do anything just want to lay in bed with eyes closed.
10. Not able to walk for more than 5-10 minutes and would feel that i might fall and collapse at any time.
11. Panic attacks started to occur more frequently. 
12. Quality of life became 0 and felt like a wake dead body all the time.

IN between all this I was researching on the internet about my issues. One thing was sure that I was not getting restorative sleep and did not know the reason why. Then one day
read something about deviated septum and sinus problems which could cause sleep apnea and difficulty in restorative sleep. Went to an ENT specialist and he checked me and said that I have a deviated septum and left nostril is blocked.  I was in joy as I began to think that yes this might be the cause of my condition so if I get this treated I will become normal again. After taking medicines for 1 month from ENT he advised Deviated Septum Surgery and Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery. I got the surgery done on 24th JUne 2024. I was having positive vibes that finally this thing has come to an end and I will again live like a normal human being. 

But, I was wrong. After surgery and removal of nose stents I did not feel normal. My condition was the same as earlier. Now I asked the ENT doctor what to do as I am still unable to get restorative sleep even after getting this surgery. Now the ENT advised me to consult a pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist. I again went to a pulmonologist and a sleep medicine specialist showed him my sleep study tests. Told him that I already got Deviated Septum Surgery and Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery but still I am unable to feel normal. THen he said that these surgeries are of no use in your case and I would need a CPAP to get my normal life back. Then Again I started my CPAP therapy from 19th JUly 2024. Now I have slept 4 Nights with cpap. not even 1 % improvement can be seen here. 

I have lost all hope now. I have an 18 month old son and I have started feeling that I may not see him growing up as sooner or later something will happen to me. If I don't get treated, I may never recover and feel like a normal human being again. I am losing all hope.

Some points About my current situation.
1. I still feel like this the whole day. 
2. My left nostril still seems blocked sometimes completely even after the surgery. 

I will share all the reports and tests for the experts to see here so that they can guide me more on this. 
Thank you all of you for your time.

Regards, Rahul

---

ENT Doc advise and Surgery Report is also attached.

[raulmalik]

How to add pdf here. I need to share my Clinic POLYSOMNOGRAPHY / Sleep Study Report here.

[Narcil]

You can use the attachement feature as long as the pdf isn't too large otherwise you'll have to take screenshots i think.

your charts look very good but changes don't happen after 4 days. pace yourself.

[raulmalik]

I also would like to add that i have a very shallow breathing.

[Crimson Nape]

raulmalik - Your 2 threads were related to your therapy. For this reason, I have merged them. This provides the reader a history of your past settings and results. Having the ability to see past attempts and their results will help to form better recommendations. Please use this thread for all your therapy related posts. I have changed the thread title to, "raulmalik - Help in Analysing Oscar Data" to be more inclusive.
- Red

[PeaceLoveAndPizza]

How did you end up with your current settings? 

I am a fixed pressure proponent in certain instances, but to find the correct pressure is either guessing or titrated. I prefer to titrate as it is based on how you respond to things.

Try the following:

Mode APAP
Min pressure 7
Max pressure 15
EPR 2 full-time
No ramp

That should tell us quite a bit. Once we have narrowed down the range you can decide as to whether you want to use a fixed, auto-adjusting, or a hybrid with a small auto-adjust range. Once you have a few nights of OSCAR data we can use the 95% as the “fixed” pressure to begin tweaking.

[Phaleronic]

I see that you're changing your pressure settings, are you at 8cm min 10cm max now with epr on 3 fulltime? I too am an advocate for fixed pressure over apap in most osa situations, but you were hitting your max pressures when they were 10cm and 11cm, but I think 7cm is too low for minimum right now with EPR set to 3, so I'd set min to 9cm with EPR3 and set max to 15cm and PL&P stated.