How To Adjust Pressure For Clear Airway Apneas

[Ice Man]

I don't have ramp on.  My pressure starts at 7 and, if necessary, goes up from there.  I got up last night I think 4 times to go to the bathroom, which is a little high for me.  Each time I turn the air flow off and disconnect the air tube.  Usually takes 1-2 min.

[Ice Man]

    Sorry it has taken me so long to get back, but we have had company for Easter.  Here is an example of a cluster of CAs from a few nights ago with 21 apneas occurring within ~45 min.   In this case, the CAs bothered me: I felt very warm and had to go to the bathroom (adrenaline?).  I changed from Flonase to Claritin at bedtime because the Flonase didn’t seem to working.  The Claritin reduced my nasal/sinus congestion throughout the night.  I currently have no ramp and my pressure is 8-11.  Any ideas?

[OpalRose]

Your pressure at 8cm evened out and stayed steady until around 4am even through the clusters of CA's. If the CA's bother you, you can experiment by changing EPR from 3 to 2. Observe the results.

I don't expect to see much change as far as the awakenings and bathroom breaks go, and honestly don't have an answer why your sleep is do disrupted.

Have you seen a urologist lately? He/She may be able to shed some light on the frequent awakenings to urinate.

[Ice Man]

Thanks for your help.  I will try my EPR at 2 tonight.  Many nights I get up only 3 times.  I am 78 and have had prostate problems for a long time culminating in prostate surgery 2-3 years ago, which helped.  Thanks again.

[Nightynite]

Ice Man, Your clear airway events are very similar to mine and around the same time.

In my case it’s always early in the morning and I find myself trying to go back to sleep and usually I’m tossing and turning. Eventually I just get up.

[Ice Man]

I also toss and turn.  Last night I got up at 5:30 and dozed in a chair in my bedroom for ~30 min. and then went back to bed for 30 min. until my usual time to get up.   At the recommendation of my sleep doctor, I am cutting my total time in bed from 8 hrs. to 7.5 hrs. starting tonight.  Trying to reduce my "bad" sleep time.  Thanks for your input.

[OpalRose]

Ice Man,
Interested to see if you slept any better. Did you change your EPR to 2?

I also toss and turn, but can usually fall back to sleep quickly. I sometimes wake up earlier than I would like, but instead of going back to sleep for an hour, I just get up.

I find that I feel better than trying to catch that extra hour sleep.

[Ice Man]

OpalRose,

I changed my EPR to 2 Monday night, but my API was again high at 2.6 with a cluster of CA’s in the last hour.  I was disappointed, but one night doesn’t prove anything.  Last night, I also switched to a really “fat” pillow that my wife took out of a sham pillow case.  It probably was 4” thicker than the previous pillow.  My API was 0.0 with full time in bed: 11:00 to 6:30.  Of course, I will be continuing with everything the same.  My new approach is to monitor my API by quickly turning the machine off and then back on.  If the API is starting to rapidly increase (e.g., .5 in a half hour) or I think I can’t ever get back to sleep, I get up.  If it is way earlier than 6:30 AM, I try to doze in a chair in my bedroom and then go back to bed.

[OpalRose]

Ok, stick with it for awhile.  The EPR set to 2 did drop the CA's a little.  

I'm not too worried over the clusters of CA's in the early morning hour.  This is normally what we refer to as SWJ (Sleep Wake Junk).

From the Wiki:
Sleep-Wake-Junk - Clusters of apnea and hypopnea events concentrated mainly around periods of sleep-wake transition. In general Sleep-wake-junk (SWJ) is not regarded as "real" since they do not occur during periods of sleep, but may be during semi-awake periods or "dozing".

[Ice Man]

    Here is my OSCAR Daily data from last night (5/5/22).  I was diagnosed with Mild-Medium sleep apnea 7 months ago and have been using the equipment for 6 months (Air Sense 11 Autoset, AirFit F20).  My OA apneas are long gone, then I seemed to get clusters of CAs the last two hours (poor sleep).  Now I am getting many Hypopneas, which people tell me are worse than CAs.  I’ve tried many things including changing my machine to CPAP mode and trying various pressures.  I’m seeing my sleep doctor at the end of the month. I feel worse (tired, sleepy, fuzzy thinking)  than before I started using the equipment.  Any ideas as to how to get rid of these Hypopneas?