05-31-2018, 09:47 AM
Help me lower my AHI
Need some advice to help lower my AHI. Original sleep study my AHI was 4.3. I feel better when it is around 2 or under, but the 3-4+ leaves me feeling tired, and foggy all day. I use a headstrap to control mouth breathing, sleep on my back,and side, treat sinus problems with prescription steroid spray. Tried tweeking my pressure up with no effect. Tried a full face mask, and that helped nothing. Hopefully the 3 screenshots I attached appear.I need advice. Thank you[attachment=6322][attachment=6322]
RE: Help me lower my AHI
You have quite a few things going on and none of it is terrible but if it is the AHI you want down I would allow the machine more pressure, a max of 16 and turn on your EPR, then raise the lower pressure a little to 8. See how that works out, but it might cause some others to rise, so keep an eye on that and post another chart in a couple of days to see what happens.
On the whole you are not that bad, do you feel fatigued at all?
I am NOT a doctor. I try to help, but do not take what I say as medical advice.
Every journey, however large or small starts with the first step.
RE: Help me lower my AHI
Your median, 95% and maximum pressure is all the same at 9.4 cm. Your range of 8.0 to 9.4 is simply ineffective in stopping the obstructive apnea and hypopnea you are experiencing. A more effective range would be 9.0 to 12.0 and I would strongly suggest adding some EPR for better comfort and to help reduce hypopnea. You may end up needing a higher maximum pressure than 12.0, but we know your current maximum pressure is insufficient. If you can tolerate no ramp, or ramp that starts at a higher pressure, that would be a good adjustment to make. I would suggest starting ramp at 7.0.
Consider turning off the pie chart in the menu at File/Preferences/Appearance. The use of the pie chart is hiding a lot of the therapy statistics.
05-31-2018, 11:49 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-31-2018, 11:54 AM by Mogy.)
RE: Help me lower my AHI
Hi NanaPainter,
Currently your max pressure is 9.4. If you look at your Pressure Graph you'll notice that the machine is keeping you at or near the max pressure for the whole night. It needs a larger pressure range to be able to lower the AHI.
I recommend increasing the max pressure to 10 and see if you get better results.
RE: Help me lower my AHI
It would help us if you arranged the charts the way it suggests in my signature. This gives us a liitle more info to help you.
RE: Help me lower my AHI
[attachment=6411][attachment=6410]Increased max pressure to 10 ( going up slowly as needed). Not sure if I've set ramp, or EPR correctly. Using a neck pillow to help my leak problem.
06-03-2018, 10:20 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-03-2018, 10:21 AM by Sleeprider.)
RE: Help me lower my AHI
EPR is in the clinical settings of your machine (control knob + Home) in the Comfort settings. You will need to set EPR to ON, Full Time, at a setting of 2. Right EPR is set to Ramp Only at a setting of 1. The EPR should help with the flow limitations and hypopnea. I think you're taking the right approach but your pressure is at the maximum setting of 10 most of the time. EPR is going to make that more comfortable, but I think you will need to continue to increase the maximum pressure.
