[Treatment] Jacob0003 - therapy struggles

[Jacob0003]

Hello,

I'm about 2 months into CPAP therapy, and it's been a struggle to say the least. After initially starting with a nasal mask and the CPAP waking me up even more than the sleep apnea due to mouth leaking and discomfort, I switched to a full face mask within the first month and have been doing a little better. I had previously tried a cheap chin strap along with denture cream to stop the mouth leaks since I can't use mouth tape with a full beard, but the full face mask has been the best solution so far. 

The worst problem I have right now is the aerophagia, which seems to be lessened by sleeping on my back with extra pillows, but that's a very difficult position for me to fall asleep / be comfortable. So I have often been sacrificing morning comfort in order to get some sleep by side sleeping, but the insane amount of air in my stomach and intestines almost make it not worth it.

I had stopped using EPR for a while since the pressure change was annoyingly making my mask move a little and I hadn't noticed any real benefit after getting used to the high pressure I'm prescribed (17), but after continuing to research aerophagia solutions, I was reminded about EPR. 

Turning EPR back on high (3) seems to have stopped the vast majority of aerophagia last night (I still had a small amount in the morning), but I would still like to lower my pressure if possible in order to be more comfortable / make side sleeping more feasible. My doctor's office offered to drop my pressure to 15 and see how I tolerate that, but I'm curious if anyone has other suggestions here based on my full data (pretty sure the doc is just looking at the calculated AHI and not the full data/graphs).

I did sleep part of the night without the CPAP last night because it's hard to me to fall back asleep with it still on, so I often end up taking it off temporarily then putting it back on later. 

Let me know if you need any zoomed graphs or more information.

I appreciate any advice.

Thanks,
-Jacob

   

[Melman]

Welcome to the forum. Have you considered APAP instead of constant pressure of 17. I suggest you try a minimum pressure of anywhere from 7 to nine and keep the max at 17. It may never go that high if not needed. Try it for a night or two and post again. We can tweak settings based on the data.

[Deborah K.]

Try what Melman suggests. I think you will be more comfortable.

[Jacob0003]

I'll give it a shot, thanks for the suggestion.

[SarcasticDave94]

Another thing to consider, although not shown within this particular OSCAR chart, if lying on your back with a stack of pillows, you may force your chin to tuck towards your chest which might increase what is called here Positional Apnea.

On the OSCAR chart, if it were to happen, you'll see clusters of events. If it occurs, the simplest solution is avoid the stack of pillows.

About aerophagia, I would get it occasionally with my ASV because therapy requirements had my max pressure of IPAP 25 which it did hit at times. Combine that with GERD. My solution was a left side down sleep position. Right side was always worse.