RE: New diagnosis, 3 weeks with CPAP
There is a big difference between 18-20 AHI and less than 5/hour, and periodic breathing is significanly diminished. It would be nice to see the events reduced further, and considering they are mainly obstructive, it might be time to consider small changes in pressure. Based on what we are seeing, you seem to be adapting to the therapy and 8.5 cm might give better results.
RE: New diagnosis, 3 weeks with CPAP
Thank you. I'll adjust to 8.5 cm tonight. I'll see if I can swap out the Dreamstation for a Resmed Airsense 10 Autoset for the remainder of my 3 week trial. I'm also going to order a buckwheat pillow.
RE: New diagnosis, 3 weeks with CPAP
I went to see my sleep clinician this morning. I brought the trial Dreamstation and my laptop with Oscar with me. After much conversation and viewing of the OSCAR charts, he suggested that I take home both the Dreamstation and a Resmed AirSense 10 Autoset For Her, along with a AirFit P10 and a chin strap to try. He suggested that I continue the trial with AirSense 10 Autoset, but keep the Dreamstation in the event that we see worse results with the former. I've shared several of the 'one for the books' success stories, here on apnea board, demonstrated OSCAR and how to find it, and encouraged him to join the forum. He does not have the tools at his disposal that enable him to see the data that OSCAR shows. He has expressed hope that what he learns from this continuing trial may help him with other patients. I suggested that I email my daily OSCAR charts to him and then any zoomed in areas of interest that he requests. He was pleased to have an informed patient and is encouraged that he too will learn from all of this. I'm at a fixed pressure of 9 for the rest of this week.
Thank you all for your part in creating a forum where folks are pleased to help one another, the moderators and advisors are top notch in their understanding and are quick to encourage and celebrate successes. Without you all, I would have most likely dropped off the Dreamstation today and walked away, never to return. Now, several other patients may be helped too.
I've created a new OSCAR profile for the ResMed and imported some initial data, after trying the large, medium and small nasal pillows for the N10. The small pillow felt just right, and I fell asleep for a thirty minute nap. I'll post several charts from using the ResMed AirSense 10 Autoset, at the end of this week.
RE: New diagnosis, 3 weeks with CPAP
Wow! What a great night of sleep! If this isn't an anomaly, the ResMed AirSense 10 AutoSet is just a brilliant piece of kit for me! 
Woke up with sore nostrils from the pillows mask. Switched from the medium to the large pillows after the first round of sleep. I'm hoping that this continues. I think the large leaks were from adjusting the pillows mask several times during the night.
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RE: New diagnosis, 3 weeks with CPAP
Why am I not surprised. Glad you got the Resmed! Get established at current settings, then we can try EPR at 1 and perhaps some automatic pressure and see what we see.
RE: New diagnosis, 3 weeks with CPAP
I've been following this thread and just want to say how delighted I am to see your wonderful results. What a turn-around! I also wish everyone could have a clinician as engaged and helpful as yours is.
If you should happen to have the occasional meh night, don't worry about it. Just keep an eye on the general trend. I hope it will be wonderful.
Oh, and if the large pillows don't make your nose more comfortable, try dabbing on a little bit of Lansinoh, which is a lanolin-based ointment made for nursing mothers but also very useful for nasal pillow users.
RE: New diagnosis, 3 weeks with CPAP
@Dormeo, Thank you for the expression of your delight and encouragement and for the tip on the ointment. My AHI has been 1.6, 1.8, and 2.1 over the past three nights. I feel refreshed when I wake in the mornings and have not been tired late in the afternoon. I'm pleased that my wife is also sleeping better, as she would often wakeup and listen to make sure I was breathing. I'm going to settle in for the remaining two weeks of the trial and, if I continue to feel well, I'll do all that I can to obtain a ResMed AirSense 10 AutoSet.
RE: New diagnosis, 3 weeks with CPAP
RE: New diagnosis, 3 weeks with CPAP
Last night was the first night with my new ResMed AirSense 10 AutoSet and a P30i mask. Up until last night, for the past few weeks, I was still using the For Her model provided by my DME as part of the initial 8 week trial. The DME set the new AirSense in APAP autoset mode with min pressure of 9 and max of 15 with EPR of 2. After waking up halfway through the night and feeling full of air, I switched the min pressure to 7 and the max to 12 with an EPR of 3. OSCAR is indicating that there were 25 minutes of CSR during this 2nd half of the night. I am so tired and foggy this morning!
One other observation is that there is a Response Comfort setting with the option of Standard of Soft. I don't remember this setting on the For Her model, but it may have been there. This is set as Standard on my new machine.
I was not using the For Her setting of the trial AirSense. I'm surprised at the difference in my body's reaction from the previous machine to the new one. I would really appreciate any advice on how to proceed. Note that I am using a SSC.
RE: New diagnosis, 3 weeks with CPAP
Welcome to the forum.
I cannot talk to your previous machine but here is what is going on here.
Your obstructive apnea is in good shape. The Central Apnea is not.
What I believe is happening is your autoset is too efficient in helping you breathe. This is evidenced by the autoset washing out the CO2 from your blood. This is 'bad' because it id a 'high' pCO2 in your blood that chemosensors detect and when too high do not send the signal to breathe. These chemosensors are what sends the primary signal to breathe.
This should be fixed by reducing your EPR to 1. So set EPR=1. We may choose to change this once we see what it does. Your sensitivity may, only may go away over a 2-3 month period.
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