[Treatment] How do I replicate my best night of sleep?

[Scatterbrained]

Hello,

I'm about three weeks into my therapy and struggling to get used to it. I've attached below my best night of sleep (5/2/23), where I decided to use mouth tape. But on the night afterward and for several in a row, I've been waking up in the middle of the night with high anxiety and claustrophobia. It feels like I'm suffocating with the warm air and the nasal pillows on. I have to take off the mask for the rest of the night to stop hyperventilating. I'm not sure why I can't tolerate the mask when I wake up, especially because I fall asleep with it just fine.

Using the f20 ffm seems to help with the feeling of suffocation. I can breathe easier with it, but the mask leaks a lot and I can't seem to fall asleep well using it. So any advice on how to replicate my best night? I've been experimenting with different settings, but nothing seems to help. Feeling very exhausted at this point.

For reference, I was diagnosed with a 7.1 AHI and 21.6 RDI, mainly hypopneas, RERAs, and some central apneas. I also take 25-50mg of trazodone at night.

Thank you in advance!

       

[Nightynite]

Hey Scatteredbrained, welcome to the club! Sorry you’re having a difficult time with this cpap stuff but you're just experiencing what we all went through. Theres no quick fix, there’s no magic setting on your machine. It’s all about working through each individual problem and finding what will work for you. Your settings can use a little adjustment, you’re starving for air cause your min. is 4 and that’s to low. Move that up to 7 tonight and report back and we will re evaluate. EPR of 3 is not working due to low min. Even though your flow limits are min, it will help in restful natural sleep.

[Scatterbrained]

Thank you. I’ll give that adjustment a try tonight.

[Scatterbrained]

Hey Scatteredbrained, welcome to the club! Sorry you’re having a difficult time with this cpap stuff but you're just experiencing what we all went through. Theres no quick fix, there’s no magic setting on your machine. It’s all about working through each individual problem and finding what will work for you.  Your settings can use a little adjustment, you’re starving for air cause your min. is 4 and that’s to low.  Move that up to 7 tonight and report back and we will re evaluate. EPR of 3 is not working due to low min. Even though your flow limits are min, it will help in restful natural sleep.

Unfortunately, I didn't notice much of an improvement last night with the minimum pressure set to 7. I woke up in the middle of the night as usual and had to take off the nasal pillows because of the claustrophobic feeling. It did feel a little less intense this time, but I still couldn't tolerate it. I noticed I left the full face mask setting on last night. Not sure if that significantly affected my results or not. 

Maybe my next step is to try different masks? I'm not looking forward to the expenses though...