OSCAR Data - Low AHI but still not feeling great, and are these real OA events?

[Santino]

Thank you. If anything, the collar may have been too loose, but I tried to have it just tight enough to keep my chin up.

Thanks for the EPR suggestion. Am I correct in thinking that, in general, higher EPR may help with the chipmunk cheeks issue? I didn't seem to to have this issue before but that was also somewhat lower pressure.

[G. Szabo]

 Am I correct in thinking that, in general, higher EPR may help with the chipmunk cheeks issue? 

Correct, it reduces the pressure average.

[Santino]

Thank you. I think this is my tentative plan for the next few nights, then:

APAP pressure 8.6 to 9.4
EPR 3
Wear cervical collar

Assuming the first night is tolerable (e.g., not waking up due to aerophagia or chipmunk cheeks), I will try and stick with this same setup for several nights so I can get more solid data on how things look. Thanks!

[Santino]

Reading more about others who, like myself, had sleep test results with high RDI but (relatively) low AHI, it sounds like even minor flow limit differences from night to night can potentially make a large difference in how one feels. This would seem to be another argument for returning to EPR 3.

I am going to start paying closer attention to flow limit variations in my OSCAR data and see how closely those correlate to my subjective feeling of restfulness the next day. For the last several days I have started using the OSCAR feature that allows you to rate how you feel, which I think will come in handy for tracking this.

[sleepyveem]

Just reading through your experience it feels similar to mine. Though I’m still getting everything dialed in, what’s helped me is the V-Com device and turning EPR off. Turning EPR off allowed all my CA’s to go away. Adding V-Com to the circuit allowed me to increase pressure without additional leaks and aerophagia. I still have some OA events but they are minimal with AHI each night between 0.5-1.5 on average. 

In terms of quality of sleep and feeling the next day, I think leaks are critical. On those days when I have lower leak, I feel pretty good. I also think for me switching from APAP to CPAP was very helpful as well. 

But this is just my experience so far. I’m done with making tweaks and trying to see how this setup works for me. So far it works well enough.

[SeePak]

Sleepy I agree I'm trialing the vcom right now

Leaks have definitely been better

And for me the pressure drop with my mask is what about 1 cm and with the vcom is almost two so I'm setting up a pressure that's 2.5 more with the vcom

But the pressure is different it has a different flow characteristic some people feel they have a problem inhaling and a lot of times they need to get their breath rate lower

And one other thing that I really wanted to say to a lot of the newer people that are coming in here with my personal experience at least there's no way that everything goes good forever there's always spurts here and there so running after settings really just doesn't do it got to find a Zone and enjoy life!

[Phaleronic]

Thank you. I think this is my tentative plan for the next few nights, then:

APAP pressure 8.6 to 9.4
EPR 3
Wear cervical collar

Assuming the first night is tolerable (e.g., not waking up due to aerophagia or chipmunk cheeks), I will try and stick with this same setup for several nights so I can get more solid data on how things look. Thanks!

Hi Santino I would still suggest turning down EPR to 1 and you can drop min pressure 1.6cm to compensate for that if you feel that it's too much epap pressure.