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I have been dealing with poor sleep for years. My siblings and Father were already on CPAP. After working my way through the healthcare system I was diagnosed with moderate sleep apnea. With a complete lack of help from the Dr. I took it upon myself to purchase my CPAP machine privately. Now I feel a little lost with fine-tuning the setting and even knowing if I'm using this thing properly. I have been using it for just over one week and I do feel "different" in the morning, but I am still completely exhausted. Before having the machine I would wake up every 3 hours, now I can tell I have 1 longer stretch of sleep to start the night and then wrestle around in bed the remainder of the night. The machine I use is a ResMed AirSense 10 with a N20 Mask. I use tape on my mouth to prevent my mouth from opening which seems to be helping.
I would really appreciate it if someone could take a look at my charts and offer some advice.
Welcome to the forum. The data show your off to a pretty good start. I suggest you set your minimum pressure at 7 and implement EPR full time at 2. EPR is expiatory pressure reduction. At a setting of 2 it will lower the pressure when you exhale by2 cm of water. It should provide more comfort, reduce flow limitations, and smooth out the pressure fluctuations. Please post data again and we'll see if additional adjustments may be helpful. Don't get discouraged. It may take some time to adapt to the therapy.
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You've made a good start. I see a couple of things that might help. You have some flow limits, which interfere with good sleep. I suggest that you turn EPR on full-time, set at 3. To make the EPR work better it would be good to change your starting pressure to 7. Also, for most adults, 7 is more comfortable. Try those two changes then post a chart again and tell us how you feel. Since you are so new to pap use it is completely normal to not feel great yet. It takes most people a while to become accustomed to sleeping with something stuck to their face and having air blowing up their nose. Don't worry, in time it will become perfectly natural and comfortable.
Thanks for the suggestion. I made the adjustment and attached the data. It didn't feel like a great night of sleep. At one point I woke up out of breath and had to take multiple deep inhales to catch up. If the data looks good I am up for trying a few more nights.
Additionally, should I be turning my max pressure down seeing I never really get close to it?
