Newcomer to this world of sleep apnea and xPAPs (after what probably (in retrospective) has been years / decades with it).
I started recently with a CPAP treatment (barely 2 months).
I did a sleep study in labo, got diagnosed with Severe Complex sleep apnea, with an AHI of 52 (36 OSA, 16 CSA).
I was given a CPAP: ResMed Airsense 11 (to start with, since the majority of events are OSA, even a CPAP will not treat the CSA).
Besides of insurance reasons (based in Europe here), the doctors said they see majority of patients with complex apnea (when majority is OSA) that after some months, when OSA is treated, CSAs tend to disappear as well. Is this a true fact?
I did then a second study in labo (actually a titration) for the doctors to configure the pressure.
It was initially set to 8 (constant).
For the first week I used rampUp from 4. I adapted quite well to the CPAP treatment and the mask, surprisingly.
Afterwards I switched RampUp off, as I could handle the 8 pressure quite ok. EPR is also off.
Initially I was still having around 12 AHI, almost all central events (OSA was almost 0).
After 1 month, I called the doctors since I was still having ~10-14 AHI, still almost all Central events (back them I did not use yet Oscar, just what the CPAP told me).
They just lowered the pressure to 6 to see if it helped (although my CSA is not treatment-emergent).
Needless to say, AHI remained the same (even OSA events did not increase, it seems).
Some weeks later I went on holidays. I also changed one medication I was taking (for other reasons; stopped with Gabapentin, started with Duloxitine).
Dunno which of the 2 was the impacting one (I suspect the medication), but I started seeing a lower AHI of 4-8.
After coming back from holidays, initial peaks of 12 AHI for few days, then settled again in 4-8 AHI.
I started using Oscar then, and I see A LOT of CSA happening mostly at the beginning of the night (from correlations I've made, seems to be in the transition of sleep states, but before deep sleep; sometimes I would see a lot of CSA even when still awake).
I see then some good sleep with no events, then lots of CSA again, sometimes mixed with a lot of Obstructive hypnoapneas.
I am attaching some screenshots of OSCAR. Let me know if you would like to see something different.
How to read Oscar analysis? What to deduce from it?
Why are there so many CSA events at what seems to be specific moments only? (And even more at the beginning of the night, before deep sleep)
Is there anything I can do (with the current CPAP) to try to further reduce the apneas (CSA, hypoapneas, ...)?
Or do I need to talk with the doctors to try to get a BiPAP / ASV machine?
Any advises from the experts around?
Thanks a lot in advance!!