NoCaffAfter4 - Therapy assistance

[staceyburke]

You had no centrals in your sleep study.  You have tons of them now.  Sometimes it is very difficult for the cpap machine to judge if it is a central or not.  In the sleep study you should have been hooked up to numerous wires and a belt around your chest to see if you were trying to inhale.  A central apnea is when your body just does not take an effort to inhale.  You are holding your breath basically although you are asleep.

Some maybe many of them could be positional apnea.  Positional apnea can NOT be controlled by pressure changes.  You have to find out what position you are getting into where you are cutting off your own airway.  Have you changed your sleep position?  Sleeping on your back?  Using more (or new) pillows?  These things can cause positional apnea by chin dropping to your sternum and cutting your airway.  Think of it of a kinked hose – nothing can get through – you have to unkink the hose…

IF you can’t make a simple change like changing to a flatter pillow helps then you will need a collar.  I have a link to collars in my signature at the bottom of the page.  It shows people who are not wearing a collar and the SAME person wearing a collar.  There is a huge difference between the two.

It may not be positional but you need to try and see if you can bring it down with changing pillows, flat bed, collar before spending a couple thousands to see it if helps.

[SarcasticDave94]

Do you have any discussion within your 3 threads about things that increase your CA? Living at high elevation or similar?

Since there's zero CA in the test, it'll be practically impossible to get insurance to buy an ASV. This also indicates on the test your CA aren't predominant but treatment emergent Central Apnea. I'd go for switching over to ResMed AirCurve 10 VAuto with high or very high trigger.

[OpalRose]

NoCaffAfrer4,

Your 3 threads have been merged.  It's much easier to see your history if kept to one thread.  
Going forward, please use the thread for your questions and OSCAR charts.  

Thanks!  

[NoCaffAfter4]

Thank you, I will!

[NoCaffAfter4]

How do I delete images to free up space for new images?

[Jay51]

You can click on "UserCP" at the top right hand corner of the page.  
Then click on "Manage Attachments"
Then check the box(es) of the attachments that you want to delete.  
At the very bottom of that page scroll down and click on "Delete selected attachments".

[NoCaffAfter4]

Hi, here is a zoomed-in image. Thank you!

[Jay51]

The vast majority of the time, Resmed machines falsely flag CSR (and OSCAR simply reports what it gets off of the machine).  Patients with heart failure can actually have CSR though.  Most other people do not.  

Here is some more reading on CSR from our wiki:  

• Cheyne-Stokes respiration
  

[NoCaffAfter4]

I'm still struggling to dial in the settings.I've seen a slight reduction in flow limit, but bump in CAs.I'm wearing a well-fitted collar. The tidal volume looks poor, as well. Is there a consensus on using a oximeter &/or V-com device? Any thoughts about settings that can be adjusted? Thank you!

[Jay51]

Still a lot of CA's.  You may have complex sleep apnea.  Maybe not, but when you increase EPR, you get more CA's.  And you need EPR to decrease your flow limitations.  Hopefully you can get optimized better, but if not a different machine may be in your future.  

I use an oximeter, as well as many members here at ApneaBoard.  There are many different kinds.  If you decide to get one, look to make sure it is compatible with OSCAR, so it syncs with OSCAR.

I have personally read more negatives about V-Com than positives here.  But a few people like it and it works for them.  It basically increases your EPAP a little bit when you exhale.  It is probably around the $25 range or so.  You can click on the "Search" tab at the top of the page if you want to see many threads and posts on v-com.