[Treatment] Resmed Aircurve ASV settings

[jmpower4]

I have been using my Resmed Aircurve ASV for over a year with little problems. Recently I had high Events and AHI readings some to 23 events. I have tried to adjust the settings and now have the results that I am posting from Sleepyhead. My settings were min EPAP 5; max EPAP 10; min IPAP 4; max IPAP 15

http://imgur.com/a/Z42zn

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[jmpower4]

Also, how do I determine what the machine was set at  from looking at the Sleepyhead data. i.e min EPAP max EPAP min IPAP max IPAP.

I am very tired and groggy the past few weeks. Thanks.

[pholynyk]

I'm not certain with the AirCurve, but I think you will find your record of prescription changes near the bottom of the Statistics tab page. I've been using SleepyHead pretty consistently for two years, and all my changes show up. I don't know if SleepyHead is tracking them, or if the machine records them on the SD card.

[mymontreal]

I have been using my Resmed Aircurve ASV for over a year with little problems. Recently I had high Events and AHI readings some to 23 events. I have tried to adjust the settings and now have the results that I am posting from Sleepyhead. My settings were min EPAP 5; max EPAP 10; min IPAP 4; max IPAP 15

http://imgur.com/a/Z42zn

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hi

There are folks on here who are very knowledgeable with regards to ASV machines and I'm sure they will reach out - I'm fairly new to my Airsense10 ASV machine, but I do have a couple of pieces of feedback/questions for you:

1. In your message, you mention Min EPAP of 5 and Max EPAP of 10 - I'm guessing those were your ORIGINAL machine settings, as SleepyHead indicates that your machine is currently set to MUCH higher pressures... ?

2. On the LHS of your Sleepyhead screenshot, you will see a section labelled "machine settings" - this shows you what your machine is currently set to - according to SH, your machine is currently set to Min EPAP of 10 and Max EPAP of 15; Together with Min PS of 3 and Max PS of 15, this yields an IPAP range of 13 - 30 which is obviously pretty high - according to your SH data, your certainly reaching an IPAP of 25...

3. The most important thing that people are going to want to see is previous Sleepyhead data - can you share any Sleepyhead graphs from when the machine DID appear to be helping you, as it sounds like your pressures were a lot lower at one time... ?

Thanks 
Mike

[jmpower4]

On the prescription changes, it only report min EPAP; max IPAP 27; PS 4.0 - 15.0. My settings were min EPAP 4; max EPAP 12; min IPAP 4; max IPAP 15. HOw do I compare these?

[jmpower4]

Here is a screen shot of a low AHI day.

http://imgur.com/a/D1Yxr

[DeepBreathing]

I get the impression you're changing your settings too frequently - you've told us a couple of settings which are contradicted by the actual settings recorded by #SleepyHead. Try keeping them at the set which gave you the lowest AHI (back on March 1) and don't touch them for at least a week.

The March 22 chart shows several intense clusters of UA (unclassified apnea). According to the Resmed literature these will be obstructive. The fact that you've had so many obstructives clustered together suggests something unusual is going on, and I would bet it relates to your posture. What a lot of members have reported is that their chin drops down to their chest ("chin tuck") which has the effect of closing off the windpipe. You can even try this while awake - sit up straight and take a few slow deep breaths. Now let you chin drop to your chest - you can feel the difference immediately. Some find a soft cervical collar helps prevent this from happening. Alternatively a different type of pillow (duck feather or buckwheat husk) can help hold your head in a open airway position.

[jmpower4]

Thanks, Deepbreathing!

I just saw a video about ASV settings that made sense. It was suggested that the settings should be EPAP min 6 max 15; PS min 4 max 19 to give the machine enough range to adjust.

Do you like these settings better than my March 1st good day settings of EPAP min 5 max 10 and PS min 4 max 18.

Thanks.

I need a good nights sleep tonight!

[DeepBreathing]

Your results on 1 March were excellent. Why did you change from those settings?

Have you heard of death by dial twiddling? It's what happens to people who keep changing their pressure all the time. The body never has a chance to acclimatise to a setting. Go back to tbe ones which worked well and don't touch them for a week. Then let us know how it went.

[jmpower4]

Good advice, DeepBreathing.

I kept the settings at the March 1st level and my AHI was 0.6 last night. Thank you.

When the Aircurve 10 ASV sleep report on the machine says 0.6 AHI and 0.0 total AHI, what does that mean?

I have a lot of energy today!