New PAPper, looking for some help interpreting graphs

[OGBF]

Hello, I'm a new APAP user, I've probably had lifelong apnea which has gone undiagnosed until now, so I have all the listed side effects, brain fog, memory problems, high blood pressure, gastric reflux etc. I had an AHI of 72 with my SPO2 going down as low as 68% during my sleep study. This scared the living daylights out of me so I couldn't wait to start therapy, I was determined to make it work from day 1 and so far it's been a success. 

However I'm still at the stage of dialling in my settings with the help of the sleep clinic and recently changed from APAP 5-12 to 8-12. The first couple of weeks, other than the oddness of sleeping with a mask and having air pumped into me all was fine, but soon afterwards I started getting aerophagia symptoms. I changed my SoftPap (equivalent to EPR I think) to level 2 and that helped but my now low AHI increased a bit and I felt that I hadn't got the same quality of sleep as before. Since my pressure increase it's a lot better especially when I turned off the ramp.

So my first question... I'm a bearded guy so I have a nasal mask, I no longer knowingly breathe through my mouth, except a couple of times recently I've woken up with my mouth slightly open with air escaping. I don't think it happens often but how can I tell looking at the data from the PrismaTS software? Does the leakage graph indicate mouth leaks as well as mask leaks?

Second question, last night I noticed that some of my night the resp flow was 50% above the line and 50% below (which I guess is normal) and another part 70% below the line and 30 above (see attached photo). How do I interpret that? It that mouth leakage?

Third question, at certain points I'm maxing out the machine settings of 12, do you think I should request a higher top limit?

OK, thanks for any responses. I'm learning a lot from the good people here.

[Gideon]

Welcome to the forum.
Your leaks, while not considered high are likely the result of "mouth breathing" which is usually nasal inhale and oral exhale as indicated by the fairly flat tops on the leak chart.

I am seeing a fair amount of flow limits. I would try an increase in your softpap.

With Aerophagia I would not increase your max pressure.

[quiescence at last]

Gideon +1

Your close up from 05:34:10 to 05:37:10 shows the following:
05:34:55 - a characteristic floe reseambling a right facing chair shows the brain stepped in, indicates that you were alerted and likely awake. All the remaining breaths were awake breathing. Prior to that event, though, you demonstrate that you were sleeping (a characteristic looking like a left facing chair).
The Obstructive Apnea scored at 05:35:30 can be discounted.

QAL

[OGBF]

Hello!

Thank you for your replies @Gideon and @quiescence at last.

It looks like I have started some mouth breathing, perhaps due to the higher pressure or maybe because I've become more relaxed now I'm getting used to sleeping with PAP. Either way I understand a little more what the charts are showing me which will help me deal with issues when they show up.

again!