2 weeks on cpap--observations and questions

[Ticman1]

Just completed 2 weeks on CPAP and am quite pleased with overall results.  

sleep study showed 40 AHI ;  now consistently less than 2 and a few times less than 1

sleeping per night is 51/2 hours to 91/4 hours   with 71/2 being avg

for the most part I am feeling better but occasionally feel tired during the day and take a nap which ranges form 1 hour to over 3.  I think I have fallen into a bad pattern with afternoon naps and shorter evening sleep periods.  I am trying to force myself to not nap and stay up till normal bedtime.


Issues:

Love my airfit n20 mask.  Have finally adjusted it to being very comfortable with minimal leaks.  Recently in the morning, i find some water in the nose pad when i remove the mask.  Not rainout and nothing that wakes me up.  I have the humidifier on auto and temp on 80 degrees.  Maybe I should try lowering the temp as we FINALLY are warming up in CT

on a couple of occasions I woke up during the night (after sleeping 5 hours or so) trying very hard to breath.  Nose was not clogged as in congested, but i was struggling to breathe.  On the 2 occasions I took off the mask and went downstairs for about 1/2 hour.  I then returned and put on the mask and slept until i woke without a problem.

I want to thank all the helpful people on this forum as I have learned quite a lot reading the many posts.  Great group and great information     

any comments on the above and to things i might consider would be most welcomed.

thanks again for making the cpap adventure an easy one so far

[Marillion]

Since your pressure is already at 10, you should be getting plenty of air to not feel starved. I would suggest you try turning your humidification settings down somewhat. I have mine set to 2 which is sufficient for where we live since it is fairly humid here and that may be too low for where you live. But try going lower. The fact that you are finding water in your nasal mask would reinforce this theory.

[Ockrocket]

A good start for you by the sound of it... but don't get a shock, or be upset, when you have a spike back in to some higher numbers though- it happens to all of us from time to time.

No doubt the suggestion will be made for you to post Sleepyhead data for those who know what they are talking about to respond to your queries.

Do the nap days follow your 5.5 hour nights?
Or do they follow the 9.5 hours?
It could be either under or over sleeping causing the need for a nap [but most likely not enough sleep for the night]

Did your machine turn itself off for some reason when you woke up struggling to breathe?

You may need to bump your minimum pressure up a little... [Edit- just saw the above comment on your pressure setting by Marillion, I may be barking up the wrong tree with my thought perhaps]
I had to bump mine from 7 to 8 to overcome the feeling of not enough air when I first went to bed each night, once I'd relaxed and was near falling asleep 7 was ok, but most nights it was a struggle for the first 15 to 30 minutes of trying to get to sleep.

The other thing going to a pressure of 8 did for me was to overcome the nose blocking I often suffer from.

Good luck with your continuing treatment. 

Cheers,
Ock.

[Marillion]

Ock is right though. Seeing the Sleepyhead charts is really the best way to see what is going on. I was basing my recommendations on what your AHI numbers are now. But really seeing the charts would be the best.

[Ticman1]

I am going to venture into sleepyhead land

I've read the how to organize the charts; how to upload and how to use imgur   Looks complicated but will try step by step instructions. I am using a Mac

2 questions. I read somewhere that charts should be by day and not by month.  Does this mean I need to do several days individually? Or is the information for the last two weeks already broken up by day when you start the sleepyhead process?

Should I post my charts in this thread or start a new thread?

Thanks again for all the help

[OpalRose]

Post in this thread, and it's ok to send a screenshot of the daily page, and summary.
Be sure to follow the tutorial on how to organize your data.

[Gideon]

As long as there is an SD card in your machine you are collecting data, detailed daily data. It's all available when you load SleepyHead.
If you have troubles just post and someone will help you.