[Pressure] Not sure what optimal pressures are

[mrsleepyhead2001]

Hi everyone, I am 20 years old and was diagnosed with sleep apnea at 19. I believe mine is genetics because my father constantly snores and gasps in his sleep, it is completely obvious he has it but is too stubborn to fix it. I am 5'9" and currently 176 pounds due to bulking up for lifting. I am planning on cutting down to 150ish 160ish.  I currently have a phillips dreamstation that i have been using every night for the past year or two. The one thing I mainly struggle with is feeling rested, and memory/brainfog problems. Basically feeling zoned out all the time, having difficulty stringing together sentences, and drowsiness/low motivation. I have been trying to fix this issue for the past few years and nothing seems to help much. I have had a bunch of medical tests ran to determine if there was another cause to my problems other than depression/anxiety/sleep apnea. Such as bloodwork, mris, ct scans, and other tests. Thankfully everything came back good and I believe that maybe the problems im still dealing with are due to not getting adequate sleep. I was using dreammapper for the longest time and only a few days ago I downloaded OSCAR to see if I could get a better understanding of my issues. I have toyed around with different pressures and settings constantly and cannot seem to optimize things. Somedays my body gets a really good night sleep on lower pressures while it seems i have to use higher pressures on other nights. I've included three seperate screenshots from three different days with different pressures and settings. I dont understand why my ahi was better on lower settings than higher. If anyone could please help me figure out the best way to deal with this I would tremendously appreciate it. I have been digging for straws at this point and just want to start feeling somewhat like myself again. So please if anyone has the time and isnt busy, please take a look and give any reccomendations. And if i need to give any more info please let me know! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!




Current Settings
Pressure Min-4.5 Max-7.5
a-Flex 1
Ramp- 5minutes
Humidifier- Fixed / 4
Heated Tube- 3
I use a Quattro FX full face mask
I do have allergies/congestion at night, so I often mouth breathe during sleep
Use flonase and antihistamine
Take Magnesium
On SSRI and mood stabilizer

[JJJ]

@MrSleepyhead 2001
My immediate guess is that your pressures are maybe a bit low, but there may be other factors.

My first comment that overweight is not a direct cause of sleep apnea, but if you have it overweight can make the symptoms worse.

My second observation is that AHI is a measure of how effective your settings are, not how appropriate they are.

My final observation is that your *range* of pressures is kind of low, that is, usually 5cm H20 is best for the low-to-high range. Personally, I use 15-25cm H20, but then my diagnosis is severe. If you start at 4cm I would recommend 9 or 10cm for the upper limit. Your device is smart enough that it won't go higher than necessary, so there's no reason to be parsimonious with the upper limit.

Your symptoms of cognitive impairment may be due to poor sleep, but there are a ton of other factors that may be at play, and not all of them are easy for doctors to test for. Doctors prescribe the cheapest and the most common tests, and they may have passed by the one your need. That your mental problems are due to sleep apnea is far from a certain conclusion.

And finally, welcome to Apnea Board. Stick around and things will get better!

[Gideon]

Welcome to the forum.

My first observation is that you are using a DS1. Are you aware of the Phillips recall? Is your machine refurbished or defoamed ? Do you use a cleaner such as soclean? Are you using an AB filter between your mask and machine? Do you see any signs of black particles in or on anything between your machine including your humidifier, hose or mask?

The charts you provided say you do better with higher settings rather than lower ones. That and I think you will feel better with a higher starting pressure so set your min pressure to 7

Also try turning off your ramp, if you need 8tvwe can turn it back on. Your pressures are low enough that you shouldn't need it.