Looks like I did everything wrong. I need help

[okrobie]

Hi, thanks for having this forum. I had two sleep studies. The first one went OK, the doctor said I had mild to moderate sleep apnea. The second one with a CPAP machine on, I didn't sleep all night. I have never had a more restless night in my life. The doctor said that the Tech fitted me with the wrong mask and that I needed another study, but my insurance wouldn't pay for another. I concluded that the doctor didn't know what he was doing and stopped seeing him. I did accept the fact that I needed a machine.

One day I saw a ResMed S9 AutoSet in a thrift shop and bought it. I didn't know anything about setup and just began using it. My wife say's I still snore and I am still very sleepy during the day.

Then I found this Forum and am anxious to get advice about setup etc.

I downloaded the software and found that I am having between 10 and 40 AI's and a very small number of AHI's. The way it was setup my pressure was staying solidly at 8 cmH2O.

What would be a good place to set it up? Auto?

Thanks for any help I can get. Jim

[cate1898]

Welcome to ApneaBoard okrobie!

I'll let those more experienced tackle your question about settings.

Glad to hear you are pursuing getting your apnea treated and this is a great place to get help!

[Shastzi]

I would try setting the low pressure at 7 and high at 11 for starters. (auto mode) No ramp.
You'll need to get SleepyHead software (free download) and start using that to tell where to go from here and
how well the therapy is working for you.

Cheers and good luck.

[zonk]

One day I saw a ResMed S9 AutoSet in a thrift shop and bought it. I didn't know anything about setup and just began using it. My wife say's I still snore and I am still very sleepy during the day.

Then I found this Forum and am anxious to get advice about setup etc.

I downloaded the software and found that I am having between 10 and 40 AI's and a very small number of AHI's. The way it was setup my pressure was staying solidly at 8 cmH2O.

What would be a good place to set it up? Auto?

Thanks for any help I can get. Jim

Hi Jim and welcome aboard
Snoring may indicate the pressure setting is far from being optimal
"Auto" might the way to go, as the machine adjust the pressure throughout the night as needed to deal with events and does not increase pressure if central event detected

AI (Apnea Index) = obstructive + central
AHI (number of apnea and hypopnea per hour) = AI + Hypopnea Index
What is the AHI and the breakdown events of AI

[trish6hundred]

Hi okrobie,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
Hang in there for more suggestions, it’s great to hear that you are starting to treat your sleep apnea, much success to you with your CPAP therapy and getting it dialed in to meet your needs.

[okrobie]

Hi all, thanks for all the encouragement. Here are my numbers.

AI: 12.8
HI: 1.2
AHI: 14

These are my averages over a 107 day period.

I'm trying to enter the new pressure settings using ResScan but they won't stay entered in my SD Card. I have tried using SleepyHead, but it keeps crashing when it's trying to read my SD card. Maybe I'll have to enter the new settings directly into the S9.

Any suggestions?

[OpalRose]

okrobie,
You should make the pressure changes on your S9. Order the Clinicians manual (see top of page, Cpap setup manuals). This will show you how to get into the providers menu where you can make changes.

[Tacoma Droner]

Jim--here's a direct link to the page that gives you instructions for changing the settings directly on the machine. Just click on it --

http://www.apneaboard.com/resmed-s9-cpap-setup

The video posted there gets into the Clinician's Menu stuff at around 11:30, if you want to skip past the simple stuff.

Once you get into the settings menu, make sure the machine mode is on AutoSet. Personally, I would turn the Ramp off during the initial stage of finding the right settings. If you want Ramp, you can add it later. I'd also set the EPR at the max for starters, which would be 3. Again, you can change that later when you get into the fine tuning.

Up above, Shastzi suggested you start out with max and min of 11 and 7. But since this is an auto-titrating machine, it's going to deliver the minimum pressure needed to get effective therapy. So I'm a proponent of using a wide range of max and min at the git-go, then later after analyzing your SleepyHead stats, you can dial in the max and min to a tighter range.

(For me, even after 10 years, my IPAP pressure can vary from 8 to 18 during different sleep periods all on the same night! So you can see why I think wide ranges are good.)

About the SleepyHead crashes, I'd suggest you start a new thread in the Software section of the forum with info about your computer and operating system, so the software geeks can have a go at it. It might be something as simple as reformatting your SD card (though you'll want to save the contents of the SD card to some other location first, because reformatting erases everything!) or updating the SleepyHead app.

[PaulaO2]

- Take a little notebook and put by your machine. Write down the changes you make and when.

- Consider also starting a sleep journal. Write in it before you go to bed what kind of day you had and how you feel. In the morning, write down what kind of night you had. In both cases, note anything different about the day or anything noteworthy. Lots of meetings at work. Tired from grandkids. Beer out with friends. Etc.

- Changes are to be made slowly. Even with an autoPAP. Set a range and leave it alone. Let it stew for at least 10 days, preferably longer. Keep looking at the data (with the S9 you have to download it at least every 7 days anyway). Between the sleep diary and the data, you'll start seeing trends. Beer may equal higher AHI. Grandkids may equal lower.

- The numbers to watch are the median and the 95%. The median is where you will eventually set the minimum near. The 95% is to gauge the maximum.

- While you wait for the data to settle, head over to our wiki site and read up on all you can about what all the stuff means.

[okrobie]

Hi all, thanks for the information and encouragement. I was able to enter the new settings directly into the S9 as suggested. It was interesting to see that the pressure did change throughout the night. I set the min at 7 and the max at 13 and according to the chip, it varied between 7.2 and 12.8 mmH2O. I'll leave it there for a couple of weeks and let you all know how it works out. I didn't get a report on the snoring since my wife doesn't sleep with me anymore. Hopefully that will change if I can demonstrate that I am no longer snoring.
But I can say that I am not drowsy this morning. That is the first in a long time.

Thanks again for the help. Jim