Choking & Dry mouth

[paradox551]

Hi all,

I have a philips respironics with a full face mask. My doctor has not been willing to adjust any settings from day one. Original script was for a 5 pressure with 15 burst.

I've had to go through my DME to adjust the settings and each time I ask my doctor to adjust my prescription after the fact, which he does do.

Prior, I had an AHI of 5 with a ton of rera's (200+). No snoring detected. The max it ever burst up to was around 7 pressure.

Currently, my pressure is set to 8.5. It is maintaining 9.5 90% of the time. It's bursting up to 13. 2-3 rera a night. AHI of 0.1-1.1.

I am waking up feeling terrible with a headache/dizziness that doesn't go away throughout the day. I have a dry mouth. My machine is recording 10-20 snoring events a night and I'm hearing myself choke in my sleep.

Humidifier settings do not change this.

My nose is also collapsing during the night. Doesn't matter if it's a full face mask or nasal pillows. My ENT has said there is nothing structurally wrong with my nose.

For background, the doctor who ordered the sleep study had to leave the clinic and I got saddled with this new doctor.

Essentially, because my AHI is under control he doesn't care about any of my current issues. I've also brought up my OSCAR graph data and got a pat on the head and told since it wasn't official licensed software it was worthless.

I've tried to stop using cpap and it was a horrible horrible idea so I'm stuck in limbo right now.

....is there any setting I can change on my end to address my issues? I've tried a lot of combinations with no success.

Also, my sleep study recorded no snoring and no central apneas and no periodic breathing. I have all three now but the periodic breathing is rare and short lived.

[JoeyWallaby]

Please post your OSCAR graph data you mentioned, organised like the wiki article instructs http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...ganization

Sleep study results would be useful too.

[Gideon]

Welcome to the forum. We can and will help you.

First please post your nightly charts. They are much more accurate than the statistics you have quoted. For example you have stated that your pressure is maintaining 9.5 90% of the night." To resolve your choking I would want to increase that pressure and have you set (don't) your min pressure to 10.5. Again don't do this. A 90% value means something else, specifically that you pressure was at or BELOW 9.5 for 90% of the night. Basically it is a high value with the spikes removed.

Your AHI is awesome. But you have a lot of RERAs. This says you likely will need a different machine, specifically a BiLevel

On your choking set min pressure = 7 and Flex = 2.
5 is too low for comfort for most adults

[Hydrangea]

Your experience is not unique, unfortunately. But this group will be such a help to you!

I'm just incredulous when doctors are so willingly blind and uncaring. (Even though I've experienced it plenty myself. I fired my sleep "doctor".)

[paradox551]

Hi,

Attached are some graphs and data. The AHI is indeed awesome. But I'm waking up with a sore throat and hearing myself choke in my sleep (very vague recollection). RERA's have more or less been taken care of with this cpap machine unless it's not as sensitive as the sleep study.

The rest of the sleep study is largely irrelevant. The reason insurance granted the cpap was because the 300+ rera's in the study along with the delayed rem. RDI (AAMS) was 224 total. RDI (CMS) was 202 total. AHI was not relevant in the study.

[paradox551]

Last one.

[JoeyWallaby]

Post flow rate closeups.

[paradox551]

Attached.

[paradox551]

https://i.imgur.com/rdXocwk.png

https://i.imgur.com/5J1yzah.png

[Crimson Nape]

paradox551,
Please review the links in my signature for organizing and posting images here.