Early Data From Self-Treating UARS

[Clementine39]

Hello, 
I have been following some of the threads on here about treating one's own UARS. I have sleep testing that does not show outright hypopneas or apneas in a large number.  I have a lot of symptoms consistent with UARS, so I am giving this a try because I have not found anything else that helps.  I awaken a lot during the night and sleep very lightly.

I have the Resmed Aircurve S10 Vauto. I have been using it for the past three nights.  The first with the setting of 14 IPA, 4 EPA as I read someone suggest in a post.  I felt like I could not exhale properly the first night and also felt like the IPA was high enough that it was hard to tolerate the sensation enough to sleep.  I know that PAP takes a while to get used to, so I tried lower pressures the past two nights, just to see how it felt. I have also changed the size of my nasal pillows to a smaller size and I think that is helping me exhale more easily.  Resmed P10 pillows.

I tolerated having the mask on for about two hours last night before taking it off. I was going to wait to gather more data, but I feel worse than usual since I have been using this device, and I am curious if any of you could see any obvious problems or had any other suggestions.  I feel bad a lot, so it could be from a different cause.  

I am frankly not sure where to properly begin with the pressures, when to try a different pressure and on what basis. What do the Ti Max and Ti Min settings change?

I see that I am having short central apnea events and am curious about more information about that.  When I am falling asleep with the mask, sometimes I feel startled awake because I have not breathed in a little bit.  My sleep testing did not reveal central apnea that I know of.

I am not that familiar with sleepyhead, so please let me know if different screenshots would be useful.  I included several zoomed in flow rate waveforms.

Thank you!

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I have attached the file since I could not post the images.

[ardenum]

I'm supprised noone answered yet. I think you need some more nights for any input and longer periods of sleep during the night but still any data will be great. Zooming in on the problematic flow rates would be helpful and maybe sleeprider could then analyse it and give you suggestions. Setting up custom event flags could also aid in diagnosis.

How to organize charts
How to attach pictures

I felt bad for a month or two after starting cpap. Similarly for a few weeks after switching from S10 Autoset to VAuto. Then things got better, much better with the VAuto. I assume it's got to do with the fact that our ME/CFS bodies were overworked and simply went deeper into recovery when given the chance.

If this helps in any way I started therapy with 8 IPAP and 5 EPAP and kept doing it with a cervical collar for 2-3 months until i was able to tolerate higher pressures. During that time I wasn't comfortable with anything above 8 but was starved for air so i made more holes in my mask to increase the flow rate. Once I reached 10 and then 12 IPAP I was no longer air hungry and started using a non modded mask. I also wore the mask during the day to get accustomed to it.

I'm no expert but I could possibly suggest some settings like IPAP 11 EPAP 7 with PS 4 and then post the charts like in the guides above. Also tell us what mask your using.

cheers

[Sleeprider]

I looked at your chart. In the future, please post them as images as described in the post above and in my signature. Your current settings are EPAP min 4.0, IPAP max 14.0 and PS 5.6. There is not indication of flow limitation and I'm pretty sure pressure support is too high in your case. I'm thinking you might do better at EPAP min 4.0, IPAP max 10.0, PS 3.0. Let's give some easier settings a try before we start fine-tuning sensitivity and timing. I think your sensation of difficulty exhaling was actually the centrals induced by over-ventilation. The medium nasal pillow was probably the better choice.