Welcome to Apnea Board !
As a guest, you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use.
To post a message, you must create a free account using a valid email address.
Login or Create an Account
Got Oscar a few days ago, would love help understanding what i can fix
Hey all, I've been using CPAP for almost a year now with varying levels of success. I mostly range from 5 to 10 AHI with a handful of nights below 3 AHI in the past year which were some of the best sleep I've had in a long time.
I'm using nasal pillows with mouth tape and recently started using a cervical collar a few months ago which helped a little in the beginning but now I'm back to 5-10 ahi.
I started using Oscar this past week and have been looking over the data but I still don't know enough to think of what to change with my CPAP. If anyone could please take a look at the charts that would be appreciated. Also, let me know if you need any additional pictures.
Many thanks to anyone willing to take a look and provide any insight or potential fixes
RE: Got Oscar a few days ago, would love help understanding what i can fix
Welcome! It looks as though you may be experiencing sleep-wake transitional CAs. This is not uncommon, and I'd say you shouldn't worry about it, except that your sleep is not restful.
I have a couple of suggestions for your settings. Please don't make these changes all at once. Only when you make one change at a time can you figure out what works or doesn't work.
You have few obstructive events, which is great. That means you can try lowering your pressure, which might be of some help in smoothing out your transitional CAs. I'd suggest dropping your pressure by maybe .4, trying that for a few nights, then dropping it another .4. If you get a bunch of OAs, then inch it back up until the OAs abate.
You also have a lot of flow limitations once you actually fall asleep. These may or may not be degrading the quality of your sleep. Your FLs might be somewhat alleviated by introducing EPR. If you try that, do it gradually, starting with 1. This may increase your CA index, though if you've lowered your pressure some, maybe it won't.
Next time you post a chart, could you change the formatting? Close the calendar on the left, and show all and only these graphs:
Another option would be to get a free account at SleepHQ and post a link here to your SleepHQ charts. That would allow people here to zoom in on pieces of your chart to see what's going on in more detail.
RE: Got Oscar a few days ago, would love help understanding what i can fix
(09-22-2024, 01:28 PM)Dormeo Wrote: Welcome! It looks as though you may be experiencing sleep-wake transitional CAs. This is not uncommon, and I'd say you shouldn't worry about it, except that your sleep is not restful.
I have a couple of suggestions for your settings. Please don't make these changes all at once. Only when you make one change at a time can you figure out what works or doesn't work.
You have few obstructive events, which is great. That means you can try lowering your pressure, which might be of some help in smoothing out your transitional CAs. I'd suggest dropping your pressure by maybe .4, trying that for a few nights, then dropping it another .4. If you get a bunch of OAs, then inch it back up until the OAs abate.
You also have a lot of flow limitations once you actually fall asleep. These may or may not be degrading the quality of your sleep. Your FLs might be somewhat alleviated by introducing EPR. If you try that, do it gradually, starting with 1. This may increase your CA index, though if you've lowered your pressure some, maybe it won't.
Next time you post a chart, could you change the formatting? Close the calendar on the left, and show all and only these graphs:
Another option would be to get a free account at SleepHQ and post a link here to your SleepHQ charts. That would allow people here to zoom in on pieces of your chart to see what's going on in more detail.
Thank you for the insight and suggestions! I went and made an account with SleepHQ and uploaded the data - here is the account share link -https://sleephq.com/public/teams/share_links/42968617-2c87-4f3b-b5ad-f0ae7a3f0e9c
based on what you wrote, ill first try gradually lowering the pressure then when i find a sweet spot for a few days/weeks ill start with the epr and then post an update.
RE: Got Oscar a few days ago, would love help understanding what i can fix
you have set the same min and max pressure but have an auto-set CPAP which can change pressure automatically to assist in removing apneas.Try setting the max pressure to 15.
RE: Got Oscar a few days ago, would love help understanding what i can fix
A pressure range can be helpful in dealing with obstructive events, but DWP's AHI is mostly central events, and allowing the machine to go higher won't help with those. The other factor on my mind is DWP's flow limitations. Those will drive pressure up, even though higher pressures are often not terribly effective for FLs. However, EPR can be effective, which is why I've suggested giving that a try after dropping the (steady) pressure downward.
