New user confused on leak data

[sdb7802]

You might do better sleeping on your side with the P10, if you can do it.

Also, bumping up your minimum pressure may increase your comfort level with the P10. At lower pressures, some users feel like the P10 is a little stuffy, due to its diffused venting (although it has a standard vent rate). A minimal amount of C-Flex or A-Flex may also help.

[Sleepster]

Is changing my minimum pressure something I should just do, or have the respiratory therapist or doc do?

You could just change it yourself and then when you next meet with the doctor, if he says something about it, you can explain why you did it. A good sleep doc won't object, as long as you're doing it for the right reason. And in this case you are.

An example of a poor reason would be that you felt it might help, or you felt you needed more air, or you felt like trying it just to see what would happen.

My sleep doc is a pulmonologist who specializes in CPAP therapy. She sees me once a year and checks the data summaries only. In fact, she doesn't have the ability to look at the detailed data! But she's up front about it, we have frank discussions about what adjustments I'm making and why. She's sees in the summaries that what I'm doing is working, so she's happy. Last time I saw her I asked her to write a prescription for me for a new machine. I had the make a model I wanted written down, as well as the pressure settings. She wrote the prescription exactly as I'd requested, and later the equipment supplier contacted me and set up the delivery appointment. The doc knew that the setting I'd selected were already working for me.

Sometimes you have to take an active interest in your therapy.

[mattmill]

Thanks, I will be meeting with my pulmonologist in 2 weeks and discuss it with him and what the comfort level is making adjustments on my own this early in therapy. The respiratory therapist has all the settings locked out and to meet my insurance compliance I was told not to touch them for the first three month without a new Rx. Not sure if that is a scare tactic or my insurance company is that tight.

The hoops we needed to pull just to get the machine covered was enough to keep me from rocking the boat right now.

[Sleepster]

All the insurance company cares about is compliance data. Did you use the machine for at least 4 hours per day on 70% of the days? If you go into the clinician's menu and change the settings this will not affect the compliance data.

Your doctor likely has a web-based portal where you can leave him a message. When I write such messages I get to the point quickly, telling them what I want in the first sentence. I then follow that with as brief an explanation as possible that gets to the point.

In this case you might write the following.

You prescribed a pressure range of 6-15 when I saw you two weeks ago, but I'd like to change the pressure range to 7-15. Please inform the RT or let me know if it's ok if I just do it myself, as I know how. The reason is because I'm experiencing more hypopneas and obstructive apneas when the pressure is low, and this results in a AHI that's just a bit above 5.