I did Lofta's home study & was diagnosed with mild OSA. Please help me with CPAP?

[allistairt]

I am using a second-hand Philips Dreamstation my dad barely used. I took it apart and replaced the chamber that held the foam with a foam-less plastic chamber I bought off Amazon. (Hope the plastic doesn't off-gas.)

WATCHPAT One home study results here:


Oscar(or sleepy time I forgot.)data from when I used CPAP in Feb. 2021:  


Current CPAP settings:


A quick background of myself and symptoms. I am 29M 5'11" & 152lbs. I suffer from daily fatigue, malaise, unrefreshing sleep, dull headaches randomly thorought the day, depression, anhedonia, anxiety, panic attacks. A few times I've woken up gasping for air and dreaming I was drowning. I'm just miserable everyday. 

Last night I tried again with CPAP therapy after not trying since Feb. 2021. The machine is louder due to lack of foam. I felt over-stimulated and couldn't fall asleep with the mask on. I'll hopefully get used to it.
I also asked my doctor for some Aderrall XR 15mg since I'm getting desperate for relief from this fatigue and depression... Trying it Saturday morning.

Any advice? I wish I had a Dr but for financial reasons I don't.

[Sleeprider]

We will learn more about your therapy from seeing an Oscar Daily chart than anything else. The instructions for organizing and attaching charts is in my signature links. Oscar tells us the settings and results as well a a lot of other data. Your screenshot of the tube settings is not very useful. Diagnostic data from Lofta shows a lot of respiratory disturbance events, with about 50/50% obstructive vs central. While most of these appear to be hypopnea the even split of obstructive and central events is a concern we need to watch with therapy and may explain why you feel overstimulated with CPAP.

[OpalRose]

Show us a screenshot of the daily page in OSCAR.
Follow the "Organization" instructions in the link in my signature line for layout of the chart. Then use the Attachment Feature to post here.

[Gideon]

Minimize the calendar and Pie chart so we can see your stats and attach a recent daily chart here, that one is a year old.

[allistairt]

We will learn more about your therapy from seeing an Oscar Daily chart than anything else.  The instructions for organizing and attaching charts is in my signature links.  Oscar tells us the settings and results as well a a lot of other data.  Your screenshot of the tube settings is not very useful.  Diagnostic data from Lofta shows a lot of respiratory disturbance events, with about 50/50% obstructive vs central.  While most of these appear to be hypopnea the even split of obstructive and central events is a concern we need to watch with therapy and may explain why you feel overstimulated with CPAP.

The lofta sleep specialist didn't really explain my sleep study very well. They just pushed me into buying a cpap machine from them. Glad I didn't. Although my dreamstation seems quite loud without the foam and others said their dreamstation is the same level of sound without the foam.
I didn't know it showed 50/50 of OSA vs central. That's concerning. I'll hopefully get a full night's sleep tonight and I will upload the data to oscar and show it to anyone that's willing to help. Thank you.

[StevesSp]

I can understand your need to deal with your apparent apnea, but I would be aware that the new meds will have a disruptive effect for a while, too. I'm not sure if you went straight onto a therapeutic dose or not, because some of these types of meds are commenced slowly. Either way, be prepared for things to get worse before they get better. Persevere though!

As a sufferer of depression myself, I can vouch for this as one of the most confusing comorbidities to have alongside apnea. Both have similar symptoms and can combine to make you feel dreadful. Also, sleep deprivation can CAUSE depression so, if you do get on top of the apnea via CPAP, you might find your mood improving even without meds.