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INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
04-27-2020, 08:06 AM (This post was last modified: 04-27-2020, 08:10 AM by weiss27md.)
RE: Finally have OSCAR, thoughts on results?
I did not wake up at all last night. I usually always wake up to go to the bathroom. Plus I had a pretty good amount of water so I should have woken up. I'll stick with these settings for a while. I'm still using a soft cervical collar and seems to work good but I have ordered a Knightsbridge Dual Band Chinstrap.
The big question is how badly does this disrupt your sleep? You have a fairly low frequency of central apnea, and if these are mostly short duration, then it is unlikely you are haveing any serious desaturation of oxygen. ASV is the preferred therapy, but EERS is a possibility.
INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
I'm not certain you'd qualify for ASV. You do have an AHI that slots you into the lower area of apnea, mild or near that. You did have higher CA to OA on test 1 if I have it right. Combining this probably means not qualified. Almost certainly, they'd fight approving. But I don't work for Blue Cross, etc. I personally think you'll need a huge dose of honest complaints 101 to bolster the possibility of them considering it. If you've not already got a small stack of complaints regarding apnea in your doc's file, you might want to start voicing these yesterday, assuming they do exist.
INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEBSITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
Main problem is how tired I am when I wake up and the whole day. Major brain fog. I'll post a picture of my sleep tracker the same night. It shows a dip in SpO2 when I had a cluster of CAs.
I guess I'll just try to buy a used ASV on my own. Thanks for the help guys. Or any other suggestions on what I can change with the machine I do have now.
As I look back over this thread, I see that your CAI bounces around a lot ("consistently inconsistent," as they say) -- and also that your reports on how you feel vary a lot. You reported feeling fine or OK several times and sleeping through the night several times, but then you feel worse and wonder whether you should invest in an expensive machine.
It isn't clear to me whether you tried more than one night with trigger sensitivity on high, as Sleeprider suggested. If you didn't, that seems like a better idea to me than buying an expensive machine during a period of feeling lousy.
It is also possible that you will adapt by having fewer CAs as time goes by.
Finally, it is possible that what makes you feel worse is not so much the CAs themselves but arousals that precede them. In the one zoomed-in view that you posted, it looks as though you have arousal breathing before the first CA, though that isn't crystal clear. It'd be worth looking at some more to see whether they occur after you take some deeper than normal breaths that don't seem to follow your normal asleep pattern.
I think you way be right Dormeo about the arousals. I kept waking up last night because either I wasn't getting enough air or because of my nasal congestion (swelling not mucus). I thought a couple times that the machine wasn't even on. I'm surprised I don't have UARS. I'm going to be cutting out dairy to see if that helps my nasal congestion. Not sure about humidifier. I have on 4 now. I'm using the slimline hose with no moisture buildup. The heated hose is too heavy for me and too hot.
The effect of humidity on nasal congestion is hard to predict. Sometimes more is better, sometimes less (or none). So by all means experiment.
You might get some reduction of swelling by using over-the-counter Flonase. Can't hurt to try it. Be aware that it may take some number of days for its effects (if any) to be felt. If it helps, keep it up, i.e., don't just use it when the need arises.
