Old Steve - Therapy Adventure

[Old Steve]

I am not aware of it while sleeping, just curious as to what it is as I use a FF mask and wear a mouth guard.  I agree not worth chasing.  Thanks for the quick reply.

[Old Mike]

I often get the same pattern and have always assumed it represents some degree of mouth breathing. Does it coincide with an increase in leak rate? Gideon mentions a "pressure bounce" as an alternative explanation. Not sure what that is.

[snorin2]

Is the issue the little hitch on expiration?

[Sklar Kruger]

We often see this pattern... Another view is that it represents a 0.5 cm pressure bounce as reflected in the mask pressure wave.  

Actually, this is the reverse of what's happening in Phoebe's case.

[Sleeprider]

Actually, this is the reverse of what's happening in Phoebe's case.

Well, I don't understand it at all, so I'm all ears.  The person that came up with the theory is long on knowledge and short on explanations.

[Sklar Kruger]

Looking at the pressure waveforms, in Phoebe's case, the pressure drop overshoots the baseline, and when it recovers it adds 0.5 cmH2O of pressure, giving a little boost and creating the blip in flow.  It's a machine issue (with help from lung restriction).

In Steve's case, the blip is in the middle of the decelerating pressure waveform limb, so it's something he did.  Could be palatal interference, maybe an expiratory grunt.

But right, if it's like 20 minutes here and there why bother.

[Sklar Kruger]

In order to see what's happening you have to blow up the image and sync Flow w/Mask Pressure.

   

Following the thin red line, exhalation starts out fine then almost immediately comes to a near halt.  This creates the blip in the pressure waveform and pressure backs up a tiny bit (~1.0 cmH2O).  Palatal interference would most certainly do this, or brief inspiratory pause/expiratory grunt.

As an aside, there seems to be quite a bit of flow still happening @end exhalation.  IIWM I'd be checking PFT.

[Old Steve]

I have recently been having some wave forms like this after what I would consider normal wave forms.  They have gone on like this for as long as 20 minutes on occasion.      

[Crimson Nape]

Steve - I have merged your three threads that relate to your CPAP journey.  It makes it easier for those that offer advice to see your history in one thread. To provide a more inclusive title, I have renamed it to "Old Steve - Therapy Adventure".

Going forward, please use this thread to post your therapy related questions and OSCAR charts.

Thanks!
- Red

[UnicornRider]

Steve, could you also post, what you consider to be a good waveform and try scaling the Y-Axis to give a better view.

Maybe +50/- 50, for scaling, for a 3 minute view?    

Then another view of the wave shapes of concern, rescaled to the same +50/-50 scaling at the same 3 minute zoom.