Newbie. Not sure if I'll be using a CPAP long term

[Jim Bronson]

I told her afterwards that the nose piece and sleeping on my side seemed to work best. She said she thought I slept better on my back with the full mask. This made me think she was full of it, because I never slept during that time. I just had my eyes closed.

You probably were actually sleeping even though you don't think you were. Assuming they had the electrodes on your head your brainwaves do not lie and if they said you were sleeping you were.

It is very common for people to underestimate how much they sleep, especially insomniacs.

Very true. Some days I wake up feeling as though I had not slept much at all, but my day goes very well with no fatigue or sleepiness. And the inverse is also true.

[lab rat]

I told her afterwards that the nose piece and sleeping on my side seemed to work best. She said she thought I slept better on my back with the full mask. This made me think she was full of it, because I never slept during that time. I just had my eyes closed.

You probably were actually sleeping even though you don't think you were. Assuming they had the electrodes on your head your brainwaves do not lie and if they said you were sleeping you were.

It is very common for people to underestimate how much they sleep, especially insomniacs.

The number of events per hour is high indicating severe sleep apnea. You are likely to need to use CPAP for the rest of your life unless you lose a huge amount of weight and even then there are people who are not obese and still have sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea at the level the sleep study showed can cut decades from your lifespan if left untreated. CPAP is life extending therapy and has been proven by many scientific studies to be the best treatment we have or are likely to have soon for sleep apnea.

Same happened to me in my recent sleep study.

I was just lying there from 9:00pm to 12:30am.

And I know the difference between lying and sleeping, have been on cpap for 19.5 years

[eseedhouse]

I was just lying there from 9:00pm to 12:30am.
And I know the difference between lying and sleeping, have been on cpap for 19.5 years

Well, I believe the actual scientific evidence shows that people when awoken are often convinced they were not sleeping. Your brain waves when you are asleep are very different than when you are awake. If you had the electrodes on your head and they say you slept then, you slept, even if you didn't think so. I experienced the very same feeling in my sleep study, but the brainwaves showed I got enough sleep for a reliable diagnosis.

[TheDuke]

I have used several different brands of CPAP/XPAP when vacationing in high mountains in the West, and all my machines worked fine at altitude. Virtually all modern machines have built-in altitude compensation. I felt fine at high altitude( 8000 to 11,000 ft.) and never experience any problems at all. I wish I could go back th the High West tomorro0w!!

TheDuke

I am a skier, about half the winter I spend up in the mountains in CO. Do CPAP machines work at 9000 Ft?

I'll try the sleepyhead software. I'm a computer geek.

I have look at the resmed myair website and the U-sleep websites for the CPAP. U-sleep is a little funky. Seems like it is made for some kind of compliance thing. The place that supplied my CPAP said that I can't have the myair info without the U-sleep.

Really the expense isn't the big thing for me. I have decent insurance and am willing to pay. I just really don't like wearing the CPap or taking meds in general. I'm willing to try though.

[Maniac007]

I am a skier, about half the winter I spend up in the mountains in CO. Do CPAP machines work at 9000 Ft?

I'll try the sleepyhead software. I'm a computer geek.

I have look at the resmed myair website and the U-sleep websites for the CPAP. U-sleep is a little funky. Seems like it is made for some kind of compliance thing. The place that supplied my CPAP said that I can't have the myair info without the U-sleep.

Really the expense isn't the big thing for me. I have decent insurance and am willing to pay. I just really don't like wearing the CPap or taking meds in general. I'm willing to try though.

Mogulman...I'm a newbie on cpap. Been on it since June 16 '15. The U-Sleep app is ok if you want just numbers to show for your sleep session when you click on the Metrics tab. To me it is more for a compliance check. The myair isn't anything better, just has a cute circle with a score in it with a couple of grading scales. My DME only wanted me to use the U-Sleep program and I also started using the myair also. When I downloaded the Sleepyhead program from this site, it will show ALL that you do from the time your machine starts till you stop it. I'm no computer geek but the sleepyhead is what the doctors need to use instead of just a couple of numbers. Just make sure that you protect your SD card by locking it before you insert it into the computer and unlock it when you re-install back into your cpap machine.

[dannyhawaii]

This all sounds pretty similar to my situation, I've started a thread myself. I'm on a trial to see if CPAP helps me with hypersomnia after using a MAS (splint) without as much success as hoped for.

I'll be following this thread with interest,

[quiescence at last]

Ok... Here are links to the 2 nights that I've used the p10. Neither one was great. The second night on 7/29, I only used the CPAP for a little over 3 hours. I woke up, and wanted to get back to sleep quickly so I tore it off my head. Not sure exactly what happened, but I do remember taking it off.

To be honest, I'm more tired now that I'm using this thing, mostly because I keep waking up.

Here are the links...

7/28: First night with P10, Large pillows. http://1drv.ms/1Itezil
7/29: Second night with P10, medium pillows, also adjusted ramp pressure to 6.0. http://1drv.ms/1H7WGET

Yep. It looks like you have some good results. You may start to feel the benefit in a few days. Nice to know you are not choking.

I was a little surprised and a bit curious about the elevated respiration rate. I have seen this in a friend's charts, and wonder if I can ask you to post a chart that could clarify what the software is seeing.

If you could send a 4 minute blowup of your flow rate, similar to below, this would show what I am guessing will look like the following -



I would suggest about 23:30 to 23:34 on July 29.

I think you can still make adjustments even with the low AHI you are experiencing. If you do, you may feel better.

My friend did reduce the EPR a bit and got a more classical breathing pattern and returned to the 12-14 breaths per minute more widely seen.

Thanks,

QAL

[mogulman]

Ok..So I went on vacation for a week. I didn't take the CPAP with me. I debated it, but we were going to multiple hotels and also sleeping on a train. I'm also not really comfortable sleeping with it, and didn't want to make my vacation miserable.

I slept really well on vacation without the CPAP. I felt like I had much more energy than when I was wearing it before vacation. I know...not the way its supposed to be.

I noticed that prior to vacation the large pillow from the P10 nasal pillows was rubbing against the edge of my nose/face and causing irritation.

So when I got back last night, I tried the medium P10 pillow again. I felt like it was hard to breath through it, even without being connected to the machine. The large was better but slightly harder to breath through. I tried medium anyway, and used it for about 2 hours, then ripped it off because I couldn't sleep.

I'm giving up on the nasal pillow. I'm almost at the point of giving up completely.

Any other suggestions? Go back to nasal mask? Maybe I didn't give that enough of a try. I do know the CPAP is supposed to help me, but if I can't sleep and am exhausted because it wakes me up, I feel like that is worse than trying to use it.

[mogulman]

Here is the 23:30-23:34 from 7/29

[quiescence at last]

Thanks for the strip chart on the section of interest. I picked it because this is an area that seemed relatively calm. You have a nice, consistent, inhale and exhale, no indication of excitability. It is not the pattern I expected, that my friend has, which is wiggly and got fixed by lowering the EPR from 3 to 2 or 1.

Your respiration is suggestive of a rather small frame, and potentially a rather young age (under 12 yrs old). Nothing particularly strange about the breaths. I do wonder if you normally breathe with your diaphragm or by raising and lowering your chest. For example if you slept with a restraint around your belly, or a cast or excruciating back pain that prevented you from breathing from the diaphragm.

Please don't give up on this treatment. You might increase your pressure band from 9-16 to 10-16, and keep the EPR at 3.

If I were in your shoes, I would learn meditative deep breathing to practice slower deeper respirations while awake. See what your normal respiration is while awake by tracking using CPAP and the most comfortable mask and temperature combination, breathing from belly.

We're rooting for you!

QAL