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Like you, I was in the habit of thinking it was time to get up, throwing my mask off, and then sleeping another couple of hours. Then Oscar would show I was only sleeping 5 hours or so.
I had to work at it, even if only to get more accurate data out of Oscar. I had to vigorously persuade myself not to take off my mask even if I imagined it was time for breakfast. After I worked at it for a while (I still sometimes screw up), I found that the quality of my sleep is noticeably better if I spend those last few hours of the night with my mask on. I feel way better just for having the two extra hours with therapy.
I raised the pressure two times and now use a range from 7.8 - 9.8. Unfortunately, it does not seem to reduce my AHI, yet.
Please take a look at the last night and a detail part of an OA event. Could it be possible, that it is related to movement (side to back position)?
Also, I do not understand the way my AirSense 10 AutoSet works. Why is the pressure only increased, when the OA event already ended? It does not look like it is raising the pressure directly when necessary. I've noticed this a few times already.
I am thinking about increasing the pressure further by 0.4.
The pause occurred after you inhaled, so you might have been holding your breath as you turned over. I'm not sure, though; 26 seconds is a long time to hold your breath!
The pressure increases aren't able to open up your airway when you're in the middle of having an OA. Instead, the pressure increases after an OA in order to prevent another one.
I think you'd benefit from raising your minimum and maximum. You can do it in very small increments if you like -- maybe even just .2 at a time. I'd give it at least 3 nights at each new setting. You're looking for the lowest possible pressure that will head off most OAs.
11-13-2024, 06:01 PM (This post was last modified: 11-13-2024, 06:10 PM by dahaupt. Edited 1 time in total.)
RE: Help optimizing my AHI and sleep quality
Hey, it's been a few months now and I'm still trying to improve my sleep.
I'm now using a mouth tape against potential mouth leaks and have also been wearing a Wellue O2 ring since a few days for obtaining more data.
Please see the last screenshot of the last night. Flow limitations seem to be greatly reduced, but at the same time I have to deal with more aerophagia and leakage, while the AHI is pretty high related to CAs.
For comparison I've added another day, where I've been using a fixed pressure of 7.4 without EPR in order to prevent aerophagia.
Do I have to raise my pressure even further to prevent those OAs? I'm not sure if I really can handle more pressure.
For the next night, I will test a soft cervical collar (Caldera Releaf).
In an ideal world, your AHI would be more consistently under 2, but in real life, we sometimes have to make trade-offs.
Is your aerophagia painful? Do is wake you up or keep you awake? Or instead is it just a hassle to do the burping and farting that will get the air out of your digestive tract? Try to find the min and max pressures that keep the aerophagia from interfering with your sleep. Use those pressures for a while, then try going up just .2 and see what happens. If it brings discomfort that messes with sleep, go back down; if it's OK, then leave it there for a while and try another .2. You have to be fairly methodical about this; it can help to keep a brief record for yourself of what the aerophagia is like at different settings.
Are your leaks waking you up? If they aren't, don't worry about them. If they are, you might experiment with refitting your mask or even trying a new mask.
The EPR really helped with your FLs and snores, so do keep using it. It's possible that it contributes to your CA count, but your CAs may well be coming after arousals, in which case it's the arousal and not the CA that matters. As you've seen, this can be quite inconsistent from one night to the next.
Over all, I think it'll be good for you to focus on how you feel subjectively both during the night and during the day. If you seem to be sleeping pretty soundly and feel well-rested during the day, the minutiae of your numbers won't matter much, so long as they stay as good as they are now.
