Dougs New Therapy Thread

[Jay51]

Dugy40, your charts look ok IMO.  Your CA's are spread out and you don't have that many of them.  It's probablyno  time to be concerned unless  you have primarily CA's; and your AHI is over 5 or so.  Your AHI is low though.  And your CA's are spread out.  

You take long, slow, average size breaths from your OSCAR data.  Your respiratory rate is at the very low end of normal or even slightly low at around 10 median.  Your inspiration time is pretty long also:  2.8 seconds or so.  Your tidal volume is fine in the 500's.   

Have you ever had your SPO2 levels tested, Dugy?  Have you ever used an oximeter to record it at night?  Just asking because your Pap therapy looks suffcient. If you SPO2 levels are ok, then your therapy is probably sufficient - it is not the pap therapy that is causing you tiredness, ills, etc.

[Dugy40]

ty for that info. when u say my inspiration is long is that good or bad? its strange to me that i am not having any OA's on most nights and that theres so many centrals compared to two years ago. Is it wrong to think i dont need cpap? it was 10 years ago when i tested and i dont remember the ahi but it was very high, i did lose about 50 pounds since then. i weigh 220 at 6 feet 2 inches tall. what is the best oxygen monitor to buy? ive seen those rings, wellvue i think? id like to monitor that. something is not right with me, 10 hours of sleep with very few events yet i am still exhausted on and off...

[Jay51]

As long as your SPO2 numbers are good, I wouldn't worry about a little longer than normal inspiration time.   I definitely would keep using cpap if I were you.  You may have other health conditions causing your tiredness, etc.; but stopping cpap therapy would most likely make them worst.  

Here is a link to OSCAR compatible oximeters.   http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php..._oximeters

[Dugy40]

i changed my pressure to 11.6 for exhale and inhale. didnt put on cpap. left on auto but chose same pressure. how does it look . i notice my respiratory rate down to 9ish. but hows it look compare to before? ty 
       

[Jay51]

Your charts look good (from an AHI perspective).  Your inspiration time is 3.14 I think.  That is pretty long.  Acceptable if you are comfortable with it.  Does it feel too long or ok to you?  You have a good tidal volume and your minute vent is ok (that makes up for the lower than normal respiratory rate of 9ish).  

And if your SPO2 numbers are ok, then you are doing just about everything you can from a sleep apnea/pap therapy perspective to improve your health IMO.

[Dugy40]

i cant monitor my oxygen yet. planning on moving pressure to an even 12. i still have epr 3 on. it didnt feel hard to breathe. but events are lower than usual

[Sleeprider]

Doug, to really evaluate respiration timing we need to see a zoomed image of the flow rate. Ideally zoomed images showing 3-4 minutes of the flow rate let us manually interpret what is going on rather than rely on statistics that are prone to error.

[Dugy40]

Just pick a random spot or an event? I moved up to 12 tonight.  Will post in the morning. Thank you

[Jay51]

Pick a couple of spots.  First, one where you are doing good sleeping (no events, etc. - and any random place that you know that you are asleep).  2nd one a problem area (OA).  3rd upload one of a (H).  4th one a (CA).  (And make sure the flow rate chart is showing below your uploads).  Have the problem areas in the middle of the 3 minute zoom so we can see what happened immediately before and immediately after the event.

[Jay51]

I want to amend that last post Dugy.  I made it too complicated.  Just pick any random spot where you know that you are asleep.  And you can upload a 2nd one (optional) of the worst spot (a cluster of events or even a single event) on the charts that you have posted.