New User - Getting Discouraged

[Idub88]

If you are feeling good in the morning, that is a positive sign.

My sleep and energy are definitely not where I want them to be yet but having a comfortable mask will probably help.

[Phaleronic]

My sleep and energy are definitely not where I want them to be yet but having a comfortable mask will probably help.

Checking in on your Idub88 , what masks have you tried and have you gone through the different cushion sizes to see which ones are best?

[Idub88]

Checking in on your Idub88 , what masks have you tried and have you gone through the different cushion sizes to see which ones are best?

Thanks for checking! I started with the F&P Evora FFM but I could not stop leaks and they would wake me up. I am now using the Resmed P10 nasal pillow mask and taping my mouth with cover roll stretch tape. Both the small and medium pillows hurt my nose but the large seems to be pretty comfortable. I thought I needed the FFM because I'm usually a mouth breather but I'm surprised how easy it has been to train myself to breathe through my nose.

I am still pretty tired during the day and have unexplained arousals. I am planning on trying CPAP mode at 10.4 which is right around my usual 95%. I'm wondering if a fixed pressure will wake me up less.

[Idub88]

I switched to fixed pressure at 10.4 because I think the pressure changes have been waking up.  I feel like I definitely woke up less but my chart seems to look worse than before.  Does this look okay?

   
   

[SarcasticDave94]

The chart looks great. Your goal is twofold, 1) repeat this often, and 2) now you can rely on feel more than stats to gauge therapy effectiveness.

[Idub88]

The chart looks great. Your goal is twofold, 1) repeat this often, and 2) now you can rely on feel more than stats to gauge therapy effectiveness.

Thank you!  Hopefully I'm getting close to at least feeling normal every day!

[Idub88]

I am getting over Covid right now.  I have had a couple of good nights of sleep and feel like I'm finally used to my mask but I think my charts look crappy.  Am I focusing too much on the charts?  I have some weird looking breaths.
   
   

[SarcasticDave94]

To me, the chart looks great. It probably is you're a bit stuck in the data rabbit hole. No worries though.

It seems to me that you're at the place you might not want to look at data all the time. Consider this method: Ask yourself How did I feel with CPAP therapy? Does it feel "off" in some way? Look at data. If not don't. Use the days you don't look at data to get a coffee.

[Idub88]

So it looks like I may need bilevel because no matter how much pressure I add, my breaths seem to stay shallow and my airway tries to collapse and wakes me up throughout the night. However, Kaiser is making it really difficult to swap out machines so I might look into just buying one.

[quiescence at last]

your chart looks good overall. There isn't anything about it on this macro level to give me pause. besides -

Minute ventilation is a little bit low and is a product of several other things. I'm not sure I could suggest a change.
I am only looking at one day, labelled Aug 21.

The close up you showed looks like you are asleep. It also looks like there is some resistance to inhalation portion of your breath. This might be causing you not to get as big a breath as you would have liked. That can disturb your sleep enough to not get into deep sleep state, and may also be a barrier to transitioning to REM sleep. Both those relaxed stages of sleep are tied to well being.

You might want to request an overnight trial to have your REM and Deep Sleep assessed.

QAL