[Treatment] 40+ AHI WITH cpap, feeling hopeless

[Deborah K.]

If you can post your sleep study it would help folks here to advise you. It may be that you need a different type of pap machine.

[Bobblan]

Hello everyone, I'm reviving this thread just if someone comes here from google or has the same issue as me.

I have now been to the hospital again, and while talking to the assistant nurse he obviously agreed that my ahi of 40+ was not very good, during a monthly period my AHI was about 37,5 ~ with mostly central apneas.

Talking to him I took the advice from people here and suggested a ASV to treat my symptoms, he quickly got a little bit angry (?) and told me that ASV was not meant to treat my symptomps? I dont know if I've been incredibly unlucky with doctors/nurses but they seem to not be very well informed on the hosptial I go to, Its not a sleep lab or clinic in itself, but rather a wing on a big hospital that treat people with sleep apnea & other "lung" problems, I dont know if they have different way to treat sleep apnea in Sweden or whats going on.

Anyway, I talked to a assistant nurse, because apparently I can't seem to get a 1on1 with a doctor, except for a phone call that lasted about 2 minutes.

He read my charts of cpap readings, and said that central apneas are not "dangerous", but if my treatment wasnt working I would get a BiPaP to try instead of a Cpap to see if that would work better.

He was right, I am now on BiPap treatment and it is so much better now, My ahi is now around 10.5 ~ for the month I've been using it now while still not Ideal, its still way better than 40 ~ AHI, I am more rested now and can actually live my life.

What I meant to ask here to from the experts is, we started on a kind of low pressure and i'm not exactly sure how a BiPap works exactly so I dont know what pressure I have right now (I can look it up if it helps), but I'm meant to call the hospital in 1 week to adjust accordingly and maybe raise/lower the pressure for better treatment.

Anyway, atleast for me this did wonders to treat my sleep apnea, and while still not "good", it is a huge improvement over me using Cpap, When I first did my sleep study I had an average of 48 Ahi so my sleep apnea is pretty severe.

Do you guys think that I should push for an ASV at another hospital or clinic, or try to adjust my Bipap settings to see if I can maybe go under 5 AHI per night for ideal treatment?

[OpalRose]

If you want targeted advice, post a couple OSCAR charts while using your Bipap.

Otherwise, we'd be guessing.

[Bobblan]

Sure I can try to do that tomorrow, meanwhile does anyone know how it comes that Bipap seems to treat or atleast lessen my central apneas by a large amount?

[wxmcpo]

Sure I can try to do that tomorrow, meanwhile does anyone know how it comes that Bipap seems to treat or atleast lessen my central apneas by a large amount?

I by no means am an expert, but I have been on Bipap for several years now (off and on by admission). Like you, most of my events were CAs and I came to the board looking for help. The one recommendation I received that seems to have helped the most was to turn my Trigger setting to High. I did that and it seemed to work significantly. I now have it actually set to Very High and my CA events dropped from over 100 a night to just a couple of nights ago it was at a 1 and even last night I only had 6 CA events. The most I've had since changing that setting has been 21, which is a huge drop from the 100+ I had been seeing.

[Bobblan]

I by no means am an expert, but I have been on Bipap for several years now (off and on by admission). Like you, most of my events were CAs and I came to the board looking for help. The one recommendation I received that seems to have helped the most was to turn my Trigger setting to High. I did that and it seemed to work significantly. I now have it actually set to Very High and my CA events dropped from over 100 a night to just a couple of nights ago it was at a 1 and even last night I only had 6 CA events. The most I've had since changing that setting has been 21, which is a huge drop from the 100+ I had been seeing.

Oh! This is exactly the kind of information I'm looking for! I'll bring this up with my doctor/nurse, or can I somehow configure it myself?

Thank you

[SarcasticDave94]

The OSCAR chart recommendation is still valid.

Can you tell us which BPAP you're using now? ResMed AirCurve 10 VAuto would be the best machine, especially if they're not acknowledging the ASV request. The VAuto has the trigger setting mentioned.

[Bobblan]

The OSCAR chart recommendation is still valid.

Can you tell us which BPAP you're using now? ResMed AirCurve 10 VAuto would be the best machine, especially if they're not acknowledging the ASV request. The VAuto has the trigger setting mentioned.

Yes I will post whenever I'm able to

The machine I'm using right now is called "lumis 100 vpap st-a".

[OpalRose]

According to the Clinical manual, the ResMed Lumis 100 Vpap st-a has a Trigger setting.

If you need a Clinician's Manual, order here:

https://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap-p...tup-manual

Look under Section Three.

[SarcasticDave94]

That's the equal, or almost so, to the US ventilator class ST-A. It'll treat most everything, helping with Centrals hopefully enough. The ASV is the dedicated Central Apnea tool.

Shocked and puzzled, they won't justify ASV but give out the ST-A. OK, you happen to need a neighbor?