New to APAP, do I have the right machine?

[Davileet]

Hello all. The whole process of getting an APAP machine has gone from excitement to discouraged frustation. 

I have tried to use the APAP machine for about a week now but it seems I end up gasping at the occaisonal catch up breath and not able to get satisifed to even fall asleep, or have I will have short stints of sleep before quickly being awoken. I have ended up tossing the mask aside every night so that I can get some sleep. 

I'm not sure if I should even be trying to make informed decisions with the small amount of information I have in the charts. But with that said, from my WatchPAT sleep study, my AHI was 16, and my central apnea event was a single event for the whole night. However, being connected to the APAP machine I am seeing a lot of CA events in the short periods it manages to capture, and my CA outnumbers OA.

My current pressure settings are 7-20cm of pressure with EPR of 3 full time, and no ramp time. Even though I am comfortable with the inhale at 7-10cm, the exhale is not as comfortable. It seems from looking at the charts I am having treatment-emergent central sleep apnea since they weren't present in the study. 

My question is, is it normal for APAP to create central apnea for newcomers onto APAP? 
Should I be asking about an ASV or BiPAP machine for comfort or success? Or do I suck it up and keep on fighting with APAP and see if my body turns it around? Thanks

Not able to share links yet because of the new user restriction, so hopefully the images are clear.

   
   
   

[staceyburke]

I have a aircurve so it is not the same machine but I understand there is a normal and soft mode on your model and some people have reported they do better on the soft setting.  I would give it a try.

[SarcasticDave94]

You won't need to link images to OSCAR. Use New Reply to begin a post. Type your comments in the textbox. Below that is the New Attachment area. This is where you'll attach the OSCAR chart screenshot you'll create within OSCAR, looking at the daily details tab. In this, you'll use F12 to screenshot.

Easier than what I'm trying to type, look at the link to the wiki for good directions.

https://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph...pnea_Board

[Davileet]

I did manage to find the attachment button, are you able to see the three screen shots from SleepHQ in the original post? I can also provide attachment images from OSCAR if that is better to look at.

[Deborah K.]

Yes, Oscar is more helpful.

[Davileet]

Attached to this reply of the OSCAR representation of the data. 

I have been reading up more on machine induced CA, and it seems that I should possibly adjust my EPR down to see if that helps prevent CA occurences. Hoping that I can find the right settings to allow me to actually stay asleep. Also, I am not sure if it's something that could be caused by therapy, but I can't tell if I am seeing Cheyne–Stokes breathing.

           

[RBos]

Niko at SleepHQ just put out this video Oct 28, 24 on setting up a machine to get the right pressure. He maintains most people set the range to wide and the pressure too high.
youtube.com/watch?v=qKN4pW3qYEs