New CPAP, new thread

[Geer1]

Try the same with other collar tonight.

[Geer1]

With these most recent settings and I assume the mouth tape your leaks are under control and you are finally breathing through the machine. This is resulting in some more apnea being recorded but I believe it is providing better treatment when the apnea is not occurring. Now we just need to try and figure out how to reduce the apnea occurrences.

It would be interesting to see a few 4 minute duration views of apnea now to see what they look like now that there aren't leaks and mouth breathing occurring.

[midwestguy]

Here are screen shots from 3/13. Using the Velpeau collar, all else as before.
The collar is uncomfortable, but it definitely keeps the head from dropping.
When I got up, the bottom of the tape had loosened, so my mouth could
open. Don't know if it did.

There are one 2 minute shot and two 4 minute shots.

[midwestguy]

The remaining three shots.

[Geer1]

That is what I was afraid we would see. Your previous data showed what was either mouth breathing or palatal prolapse. You were clearly mouth breathing at times and the leaks were making data hard to interpret. Now we have stopped the leaks and mouth breathing but the same phenomenon of restricted exhalation is still present (although it looks like more so in this single night of data), this makes me believe you do have palatal prolapse issues. If you don't understand what I mean by that it is when the soft portion of palate including your uvula at the back/top of your mouth flips up during exhalation and restricts the airway where it passes into nasal passage.

This is one of the unfortunate issues that is rarely treated successfully with CPAP. My theory is that lower EPR is better and your data at EPR of 2 looked better than what it does now so now I am thinking we try min pressure = 7, max pressure = 7, EPR = 1 to see what happens at a lower EPR. Then depending on results we can pick an EPR and try a slightly higher pressure to see if it has any effect.

I would be interested to see some examples of the apnea that occurred on Mar 11th (EPR 2 data) to see if palatal prolapse is also present.

[midwestguy]

i'm not happy to learn that palatal prolapse doesn't respond to CPAP.

Here's March 11 graphs. Two more follow.

[midwestguy]

The remaining two.

[midwestguy]

Info you didn't have before: I grind my teeth at night, so I wear
upper and lower bite guards. Maybe they have some effect on
my breathing.

[Geer1]

Maybe, they can affect restriction at base of tongue/jaw depending on fit. A lot of signs point towards palate restriction though which I don't believe mouth guards would affect.

[midwestguy]

Here's last night's data.

The old tape loosened up again,so I swapped it for some Hypafix.
Only one layer required, much better adhesion. Good stuff.

Is there literature (as in studies) on palatal obstruction? Will look
around after my @#$%^&* taxes are done.