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Low AHIs, still wake up feeling awful with headaches
I've been on CPAP for a little over a year, with decent results. My AHIs went from 40+ to under 1. However, I'm still waking up with a dry mouth and a headache a lot, and I'm not sure why. I've attached my OSCAR results from the past few nights - they seem pretty typical compared to other days. I'm on a ResMed Autosense 10 with Autoset machine, and I use a F30i Hybrid mask, if that helps at all. Let me know if there is anything else that would be useful to post.
RE: Low AHIs, still wake up feeling awful with headaches
Welcome! Your settings could help. Take a look at the flow limits chart and compare it with the pressures chart. You can see that the pressure is moved higher when you have increased flow limits.
Flow limits are apnea also. To help your flow limits we use EPR (exhale pressure relief). But to use it (it lowers the exhale by 1, 2 or 3 cm) you have to raise the min pressure. The absolute lowest the machine can go is 4 and yours is set at 5 - so you can only go do an 1 with the EPR.
I would suggest you set the min at 7 and EPR at 3 full time. That should make you have better sleep without headache.
Machine: Resmed Lumis VPAP 150 ST Mask Type: Full face mask Mask Make & Model: Evora Full Humidifier: Resmed Lumis VPAP 150 ST CPAP Pressure: EPAP 5, PS 5 - 7 in iVAPS mode CPAP Software: OSCAR
Other Software
Other Comments: O2 desaturation during REM when untreated or on CPAP. High CO2 on CPAP even with normal O2
RE: Low AHIs, still wake up feeling awful with headaches
This caught my attention because I have a similar history of waking with headaches with a bad one today compared to the past week or so.
I am not the most knowledgeable person here but Stacey's advice seems good to me. Flow limits have been a feature of my sleep too and EPR set to 3 proved to be better for me than EPR less than 3 or off.
The only suggestion that I can really add is that, if you cannot get this resolved with pressure settings alone, consider monitoring your oxygen using an O2 ring or similar. I do that so I know that I had a notable desaturation last night, which I have not had in a while, and I suspect that explains today's headache being so bad. Either that or, of course, the headache is simply clouding my judgement today.
05-06-2022, 07:25 PM (This post was last modified: 05-06-2022, 07:28 PM by Millstone50.)
RE: Low AHIs, still wake up feeling awful with headaches
I would also consider not using ramp if at all possible. You're ramping from 4.4cm to 5cm over a period of 15 minutes, then shooting straight up to 9cm because of all the flow limits (at least on the first image). This probably doesn't feel very good and doesn't deliver proper therapy for 15 minutes.
