My husband finally got his new machine

[ardenum]

Is your time set up correctly? Is this correct that he goes to sleep at 4am and sleeps through 10?

[jaswilliams]

He's been waking up fuzzy, and even a bit headachy recently, but says he feels much more normal today.  He says night before last the mask felt "odd" (couldn't get him to define that) and he swapped it out for a new one he had in a drawer for last night after I responded that he had a higher leak % that night.  It is a nasal only mask, and he does have periodic issues with mouth breathing, but also has a full beard/mustache and is reluctant to switch to a full face mask.  I've been debating talking him into trying a chin strap.

Ruth his mouth breathing is minimal I would not change a thing unless the amount of mouth breathing gets excessive the disruption due to the chin strap could be worse. As far as pressure settings go he only reached the max of 10 for a short period so it is not affecting his treatment, you could raise the max to 12 the APAP wont go there unless needed

[ruthcatrin]

Is your time set up correctly? Is this correct that he goes to sleep at 4am and sleeps through 10?

yes, he works a shift which gets him home from work about 11pm, which means that with my schedule currently being skewed in the other direction all these conversations are  happening via text message as we don't see each other except on days off.  Thankfully my schedule is only this way for another week and a half and then I can go back to my normal, which isn't quite as oddball as his normal, but isn't quite average either!

[ruthcatrin]

He's been waking up fuzzy, and even a bit headachy recently, but says he feels much more normal today.  He says night before last the mask felt "odd" (couldn't get him to define that) and he swapped it out for a new one he had in a drawer for last night after I responded that he had a higher leak % that night.  It is a nasal only mask, and he does have periodic issues with mouth breathing, but also has a full beard/mustache and is reluctant to switch to a full face mask.  I've been debating talking him into trying a chin strap.

Ruth his mouth breathing is minimal I would not change a thing unless the amount of mouth breathing gets excessive the disruption due to the chin strap could be worse. As far as pressure settings go he only reached the max of 10 for a short period so it is not affecting his treatment, you could raise the max to 12 the APAP wont go there unless needed

makes sense, thanks.

[ardenum]

Shift work is notoriously known to be a cause of poor sleep quality. The best sleep window is 10pm-3am. I'm sure he'd get better sleep if he went to bed straight from work.

[ruthcatrin]

His shifts don't change or rotate. He works the same shift every day/week. Mine on the other hand.......
But no, he needs to unwind or he'd never get to sleep. Now if I could convince him to not unwind on the computer.....

[fredex]

That last graph looks great--I'm now using a nasal pillow (which I think is what he uses) and my AHI is vastly better than it was with the full-face mask (so I've grown my beard back), but I have much higher leakage than he does, even with a chin strap that doesn't seem to help at all.

Otherwise, I agree with jaswilliams that the pressure settings look fine because it doesn't stay up at the top end for long periods, but goes up there and slowly declines. Also, the events graph looks great. again, I wish mine was that good. If that number of events is typical for him, I'd say he's doing fine.

I have some Central Apnea, and sometimes in addition I get a rash of hypopneas and an occasional rera. it is a rare day when my AHI gets below 1 (a few times as low as 0.15 but that's uncommon). with the nasal pillow it has not gone above about 2.8, but tends to be in the 1-2 range mostly, and that is a TON better than it ever was with the full-face mask. So despite having higher leakage I'm sticking with the nasal pillow until such time as my doctor insists I change to something else.

[ardenum]

When I had a sleep study done on 8-10, i also never reached 10. yet I get relief when im on 12-17 (epap-ipap), as i wrote in my previous post. The apnea problem is a complex issue.

[ruthcatrin]

I get what both sides are saying. I do. For example my sleep study said I needed a pressure of 10, and my AHI was damn near perfect at that, but I just discovered that 11 may actually be a better number for me. So yah we may try higher for him.