New user - overall good results but last night rough
Greetings from the West Coast of the US! New CPAP user here: 37/M, with obesity since my teens and I have always been known as a loud snorer, even as a child. Mornings have also been difficult for much of my life, but I started noticing over the past few years that they were becoming particularly frustrating and my quality of sleep was plummeting. I also found myself staying up later and later. Enter my new GO, who suggested a sleep study. So, about two months ago I went through the study and they found an AHI of 112! During the study, they fitted me to an ffm, with a pressure titrated to 14. For the rest of the night, all was well.
I received an AirSense 11 about two weeks ago, and the machine has been wonderful, with some of the usual growing pains. The FFM did not work well for me at home, even after trying two different models. I was getting massive leaks throughout the night in the 60-70 range, and I wasn't even taking the mask off and it had a good fit when tested. About an hour after falling asleep, however, the leaks would start. I was reluctant to try any of the nasal options due to what I thought was constant mouth breathing at night, but I bit the bullet and purchased a ResMed P30i. After I got it fitted at the DME and prepared for bed the first night, it was as if a light shone down upon my CPAP machine and angels started to sing: almost zero leaks, no issues keeping it on, and no mouth breathing that I can tell (although I am wearing a chin strap to try to train myself). I have to say that overall, this has been a pretty positive experience and I've started noticing benefits already, such as feeling more rested, not drowsing off in the office or the car, etc.
That said, last night was a bit rough. I woke up groggy and with a bit of a headache, although all my numbers looked good and I got plenty of sleep. Now, I am perfectly well aware that sometimes we just don't sleep well well, but I also wouldn't mind if someone with more knowledge than myself could take a look at some of my OSCAR data. After some reading and research, I have made some adjustments to the original settings: rather than set it at 14, I changed it to a range of 10-14 after realizing that the sleep police weren't going to drag me away for accessing the clinical menu; in fact, my sleep technologist didn't even mention the changed settings when I went back in to test the nasal mask, and all the data was right there on her screen and my GP never even responded to my inquiry. EPR is on full time at a setting of 2. Ramp is 20 mins, but I suspect that I will get rid of the ramp soon, as I am using it mainly to just get acclimated: I usually use that 20 mins to read a book.
I am especially curious about the breathing patterns that surround the events - I wonder if there is anything else I can do to regularize that, perhaps switch back to straight CPAP mode? I also wonder if you can see anything in particular about last night that might lead to a less than ideal night's sleep.
Thank you all for any advice you might have!
Pax.
For reference to my original post, here is a close-up shot of the breathing patterns in question that concern me. Thank you!
Pax.
I received an AirSense 11 about two weeks ago, and the machine has been wonderful, with some of the usual growing pains. The FFM did not work well for me at home, even after trying two different models. I was getting massive leaks throughout the night in the 60-70 range, and I wasn't even taking the mask off and it had a good fit when tested. About an hour after falling asleep, however, the leaks would start. I was reluctant to try any of the nasal options due to what I thought was constant mouth breathing at night, but I bit the bullet and purchased a ResMed P30i. After I got it fitted at the DME and prepared for bed the first night, it was as if a light shone down upon my CPAP machine and angels started to sing: almost zero leaks, no issues keeping it on, and no mouth breathing that I can tell (although I am wearing a chin strap to try to train myself). I have to say that overall, this has been a pretty positive experience and I've started noticing benefits already, such as feeling more rested, not drowsing off in the office or the car, etc.
That said, last night was a bit rough. I woke up groggy and with a bit of a headache, although all my numbers looked good and I got plenty of sleep. Now, I am perfectly well aware that sometimes we just don't sleep well well, but I also wouldn't mind if someone with more knowledge than myself could take a look at some of my OSCAR data. After some reading and research, I have made some adjustments to the original settings: rather than set it at 14, I changed it to a range of 10-14 after realizing that the sleep police weren't going to drag me away for accessing the clinical menu; in fact, my sleep technologist didn't even mention the changed settings when I went back in to test the nasal mask, and all the data was right there on her screen and my GP never even responded to my inquiry. EPR is on full time at a setting of 2. Ramp is 20 mins, but I suspect that I will get rid of the ramp soon, as I am using it mainly to just get acclimated: I usually use that 20 mins to read a book.
I am especially curious about the breathing patterns that surround the events - I wonder if there is anything else I can do to regularize that, perhaps switch back to straight CPAP mode? I also wonder if you can see anything in particular about last night that might lead to a less than ideal night's sleep.
Thank you all for any advice you might have!
Pax.
For reference to my original post, here is a close-up shot of the breathing patterns in question that concern me. Thank you!
Pax.
