Vin1794 - New user reccomendations

[Vin1794]

Hi Everyone,

I am just under a month now into my CPAP adventure after last fall getting diagnosed with sleep apnea with an AHI of 36. After some hoops to jump through finally got my CPAP.

When started I was on the default of a 4-20 pressure settings and the first few nights were an absolute nightmare, thanks to the sleep apnea reddit, and some snooping here, I was able to make some changes to help get used to the machine. The last 2 weeks have been great as full nights sleep are occurring, and I definitely already feel a difference in how rested I feel during the day. Getting out of bed is much easier in the morning, so it seems like I am doing something right.

I am basically here for someone to take a look at some nights from this week and make sure despite the low AHI that I am in a good place going forward. I changed pressure myself to 8-12.4 and left that for a week as 4 was air starving me as I found it does to most people, and the pressure would sometimes get so high it was disturbing in my sleep, though now that I am used to it that may have changed. I changed my EPR to 3 and that has helped tremendously with how it feels to breathe out in the mask and humidifier settings were instrumental in getting me acclimated. The last 2 weeks I have fallen asleep very quickly, just like I was before the machine so it feels like my body is finally used to it.

I had noticed in OSCAR that the pressure would reach max at certain points, and I am curious because I am hitting the max, should it be increased, despite the low overall AHI numbers, or is it okay to leave status quo. In response to seeing the max hit at 12.4 I had raised to 13.  Any other recommendations would be great if I am missing anything else!

[staceyburke]

You can see why your max number is reached, it is because the resmed moves the pressure up when it experiences flow limits.  Your flow limit are quite high.  We help flow limits by using the EPR - you have it maxed out so there is not any more we can do with the EPR.  There is a cpap that allows you to put as much EPR as you need it is the VAUTO, I have one and it is a bilevel cpap.  They are more expensive.


Now about all we can do is raise the min.  I would move it up 1 for a couple of nights and then move it up slowly until the flow limits seem better.  The max is not important except if it raises to much it disturbs sleep.  I would leave it where it is or decrease it by 1.

Flow limits are apnea just like O and H events they are just not as long lasting or as big (how much they cut off air) than the O and H.  If we can lower the size and length of the flow limits your machine will not raise the pressures like it is now.  You can see how apnea is categorized in my signature at the bottom of this post.