Hello All

[Andraew]

Hello All,

   Newb here, and just finished my first night with my new device. Seems strange to have air being blown up your nose all night... I used the contraption for about 4 hrs and ripped it off my face lol. Eventually I put it back on about an hour prior to getting up this morning. I hope to get comfortable with the mask I was issued (ResMed Quattro Air). I kept having some leakage issues around the bridge of my nose where a slight amount of air was escaping into my eyes. Wasn't too bad but got a bit annoying. Want to check out the F30, seems less claustrophobic. I will attach my sleepy head for the night so you can all take a look if that's what you do around here lol. 

Here's a little bit of my background... My name is Andrae 36 yr old Army Vet married with 2 kids (daughter 9, son 5). After I got out of the Army I met my wife Rose and after moving in together she started waking me up because i would stop breathing for up to 30 sec. at a time. She was worried and all I wanted to do was get some sleep as it has always been hard for me to get to sleep and quality sleep... forget it. If I'm lucky I may get 5 or 6 hrs of sleep once a week. Fast forward 13 years, My wife's father passed way during the Super Bowl from cancer. You could say that the game literally bored him to death. All jokes aside, I was cleaning out their house and came across a brand new dreamstation and was like hey this was never used. I started to play around with it and was about to self diagnose myself with sleep apnea. I started looking up things on the internet and Youtube and found this website. Wow there is sooo much information here that is valuable. I also decided to reach out at my PCP at the VA and re-activate a request for my sleep study. I finally was able to get a sleep study done through the VA this past Monday and Yesterday I came home with my ResMed AirSense 10 Autoset. Pretty fast process there. I did a t-3 home test and it showed that I had over 41 obstructions in a hour and they said that means I have sever sleep apnea. Although the results were just the preliminary pending the full results, they wanted to get me on a machine ASAP. Fitting process was a bit rushed and it seems as though they just patted me on the head and said here you go in the typical VA fashion.

So here I am in a nutshell! Hope to get to know some/all of you a bit better as I go on. Have a Blessed Day!!!

Don't know what to do with the Phillips Dreamstation (1 hr usage) now that I have this new device... Possibly look at selling it I guess.

[Gideon]

Welcome to the forum.

Your numbers are looking good.  How do you feel?  When your numbers are good that needs to be a good part of the direction of your tweaks.
Tweaks I'll suggest that you set your minimum pressure to 7 and EPR to 3 full time which will give you the full benefit of EPR for the full range of your treatment.

[Andraew]

I feel better than most nights, a bit more refreshed than normal, thanks for asking! If this is any sign of what is to come for me then I will definitely will try raising my pressure to 7 and give that a shot!!

[Gideon]

Min to 7 and EPR 3 should feel a bit easier to handle and impact your numbers minimally.  It means your exhale pressure will start at the AutoSet's minimum pressure of 4 with the inhale pressure of 7, both will raise together if needed.  You could reduce your max pressure to as low as 10 but you seem to be stable so that is not needed.

Check out the Mask Primer in my signature.  There is a lot of info on mask fitting in there.  The most common error is getting the mask too tight and distorting the seal.

[Andraew]

Min to 7 and EPR 3 should feel a bit easier to handle and impact your numbers minimally.  It means your exhale pressure will start at the AutoSet's minimum pressure of 4 with the inhale pressure of 7, both will raise together if needed.  You could reduce your max pressure to as low as 10 but you seem to be stable so that is not needed.

Check out the Mask Primer in my signature.  There is a lot of info on mask fitting in there.  The most common error is getting the mask too tight and distorting the seal.

Hey Fred, Thanks for pointing out the Mask Primer section, it helped me out. Didn't have too many leaks last night in comparison.  

With the change to my min pressure, I actually felt like it has helped. Already had the EPR on 3 Full time. One question though... should I change my Ramp up to 7 as well or keep it at 5 cmH2O? I noticed when I hit the ramp button it dropped me back down to 5 and it was a little uncomfortable as well as I didn't feel like it was enough pressure after being up to like 11 cmH2O when I woke up. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks for your time!

[Gideon]

Most long term users end up dropping the ramp.  Your initial pressure is 7 and with EPR 3 that means EPAP 4 and IPAP 7.  I'd drop the ramp and try it that way, just turn it off.

and thanks for the accolades on my Mask Primer.

[stanleydean]

Welcome to the forum Hello All, You are off to a great start, keep up the good work. Many of us wrestle with this stuff a long to get where you are. Many times our sleeping companions are the first and most persistent in initially raising the sleep apnea concern. My wife did that for me. By all means do not dump the spare unused Dream Station, hang on to it, it is a great backup for you or for someone else. Wishing you continuing success.

Stan

[cleverprankster]

Which home study did you do? And did your doctor recommend it vs. an overnight sleep study?