Desperate and Confused

[retired_guy]

Thanks KG,

Can you get the head of your bed up a bit? That, and try to avoid sleeping on your back for now. There are a number of goofy ideas to help you do that, such as wear a backpack, or sew a tennis ball in the seam of a t-shirt... That sort of thing. But mostly it's whatever works. Maybe even just a pillow strategically placed.

I think that would drive your events down considerably.

Then, once things are calmed down, you could increase the pressure a little bit at a time. Not more than .5 at once. Then run with it for a few days to see what happens. The goal would be to get to that sweet spot where your OA's and Hypop's are lowered considerably without increasing your CA's. Clear Airway has a way of going up whenever you make a change, which is why you only want to make small adjustments, and only one adjustment, at a time.

[bwexler]

I don't know a lot about auto Bipap machines but your IPAP and Epap seem to close together.
What is your EPAP min and max settings?
What is your pressure support setting?
Is 8-18 your Epap range?
You don't appear to be getting the benefit of the BIPAP machine.

[kgriggs]

Thanks KG,

Can you get the head of your bed up a bit? That, and try to avoid sleeping on your back for now. There are a number of goofy ideas to help you do that, such as wear a backpack, or sew a tennis ball in the seam of a t-shirt... That sort of thing. But mostly it's whatever works. Maybe even just a pillow strategically placed.

I think that would drive your events down considerably.

Then, once things are calmed down, you could increase the pressure a little bit at a time. Not more than .5 at once. Then run with it for a few days to see what happens. The goal would be to get to that sweet spot where your OA's and Hypop's are lowered considerably without increasing your CA's. Clear Airway has a way of going up whenever you make a change, which is why you only want to make small adjustments, and only one adjustment, at a time.

THANKS Retired Guy. I'm a side sleeper, but I'll elevate my head a little.

Also, I think I'll go back to the prescribed pressure (8-9) and experiment in 0.5 increments instead of jumping a lot the way I did it.

[kgriggs]

I don't know a lot about auto Bipap machines but your IPAP and Epap seem to close together.
What is your EPAP min and max settings?
What is your pressure support setting?
Is 8-18 your Epap range?
You don't appear to be getting the benefit of the BIPAP machine.

Thanks Wexler.

The machine only asks for Max IPAP (18) and Min EPAP (8) when in auto mode, so I guess the EPAP is 11-16 since the pressure support is 3-8. For simplicity, I think I'll go back to CPAP 8 in order to test only small changes at one time.