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I'm new to therapy but have been struggling horribly with symptoms for the past 5 years. It is difficult to remember or pin down exactly what I was doing when the symptoms started, but I suspect at least one of the following medications contributed to (or caused) my condition: Viibryd (SSRI), Abilify, Effexor, or opioids.
Doctors and health care providers have been USELESS and just try to throw more medications at me. I'm a 38 year old male and 150 pounds.
Attached is OSCAR data from last night but I can follow up with data from one of my longest nights of use, 7 hours, if needed. Thank you for any insights.
Im not an expert at all, but as you have no replies i recommend reposting this so hopefully someone will see it. Raise your minimum pressure as youre still having obstructives, use your 95 percent pressure as a guide. Forget the centrals for now. Watch many youtube videos of oscar analysis. Work on comfort, sleep position, leaks, and obstructives - this is the foundation.
06-27-2024, 08:55 AM (This post was last modified: 06-27-2024, 08:56 AM by Narcil.)
RE: OSCAR data thoughts? CA dominant.
(06-27-2024, 08:21 AM)BDGold99 Wrote: Im not an expert at all, but as you have no replies i recommend reposting this so hopefully someone will see it. Raise your minimum pressure as youre still having obstructives, use your 95 percent pressure as a guide. Forget the centrals for now. Watch many youtube videos of oscar analysis. Work on comfort, sleep position, leaks, and obstructives - this is the foundation.
no need to repost your "bump" likely was enough. I agree raising the min pressure seems like a good idea. try 7 or 8.
i think the more pressing issue is the near constant 15-20L/min leak tho. that can't help with comfort.
To get the graphs, settings and statistics all on one page, you can try these settings (indicated in screen shot below) that are found in the OSCAR preferences tab.
If necessary, you can adjust these to suit your own screen profile.
Concerning your centrals apneas, did you have these recorded in your sleep study?
In OSCAR, central events can sometimes be recorded as false positives, and a bit of increased pressure can help. I agree with an initial increase in minimum pressure of say 8, as a first step, to see where it goes
As indicated above, is important to have your sleep study info. .
After you have reposted with the full picture, we can look at these issues.
You are already using 7 as your starting pressure, so you don't need to change that. Did you have a lot of CAs in your sleep study? If not, they are treatment-emergent and will lessen as time passes and you adjust more to your therapy. Also, your leaks are negligible and you don't need to worry about them. On the chart, they may look high, but they really aren't. If you look at the left panel you will see that they measure only 0.03%. Don't give them another thought.
How are you feeling? Do you sleep well? Is your breathing comfortable? I suggest that you raise your EPR to 3. That makes breathing more comfortable for most of us and will lower your flow limits as well. It may cause your CAs to increase a little, but right now getting your flow limits down is more important.
Thank you all very much for your replies, I just got the email notification so sorry for the delayed response.
I did my first sleep study in lab but I could not sleep in that environment. The doctor said i slept perfectly, which was not true, and that I was all good, no sleep apnea.
I bought an at home test myself. I'll try to post the results. Might be tomorrow before I get them up. Thank yall again!! I'll work on some of your suggestions and report back.
(06-27-2024, 10:27 AM)Deborah K. Wrote: How are you feeling? Do you sleep well? Is your breathing comfortable? I suggest that you raise your EPR to 3. That makes breathing more comfortable for most of us and will lower your flow limits as well. It may cause your CAs to increase a little, but right now getting your flow limits down is more important.
I feel like absolute crap everyday. Tired, fatigued, lethargic, brain fog, my memory has declined horribly, no libido.
So I read turn EPR off for centrals and I felt like I couldn't breath, same with it on 1. I put it on 2 and that's comfortable, but 3 is most comfortable.
Why? Well normally, pressure increases will not make centrals disappear, unless they are not really centrals.
I my personal experience, increasing minimum pressure can prise open the airways just that little bit more to improve airflow and clear up any extraneous events, however they are labelled.
It is also possible the closing the gap (gradient) between minimum and maximum pressure can reduce any C02 flushing which may be a culprit for creating actual central apneas.
In addition, this also will hopefully smooth out the jagged pressure changes shown in the second segment of your first graph.
These variances can cause sleep disturbing arousals.
We really don't know at this stage, until we actually test this out, to see what happens...
06-28-2024, 04:27 AM (This post was last modified: 06-28-2024, 04:30 AM by SarcasticDave94.)
RE: OSCAR data thoughts? CA dominant.
Unless the home test included an effort belt, it likely will not be able to detect Central Apnea. So it may not help indicate the if CA were present before CPAP.
If the CA continue, you may want to request a VAuto to give you the ability to reduce flow limits and use Trigger, a timing control, to assist against CA. You might get the doctor to change your therapy to bilevel, and you'll want to request this VAuto. Base the bilevel/VAuto request on comfort that isn't present currently in your therapy. That is unless you can prove CA were existing by showing on the sleep study prior to CPAP. Then you might be able to get another bilevel for specifically treating CA. That one is ASV. Just info for now on what might be available.
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