new user question about my numbers

[pen123]

I'm a new user. Unsure of things. 

I was diagnosed with sleep apnea with a home machine.  28.1 AHI, 133 apneas, 112 objstuctive, 3 unclassified 15 central and 3 mixed.  Also 146 hyponeas.  Ive had the philips respironics dreamstation for a week.  Now I wish I had gotten the resmed.  I will see if I can switch it out. Do you think the Resmed is beter? Anyway, the device mode is Autocpap with A flex. 

I am trying to get a SD card reader so I can read my sim card.  What's weird though is there is not a sim card in my device???  I guess I will buy one. So some of the detail I give might not be good enough.  Though I do use the dreamstation bluetooth nightly report.  What does the OSCAR information show that the dreamstation does not? (told you I am completely new to this)

Here are my nights of use numbers;

Monday AHI 6, Clear 25, Obstuctive 24 Hypro 19

Tuesday AHI 2.2 Clear 4, Obstuctive 7, Hyp. 9

Wed. AHI 2, Clear 3, Obstructive 3, Hypo 16

Thursday AHI 2, Clear 1, O bstructive 3, Hypo 16

Friday, AHI was 2 when I woke up at 7. I turned the machine off and laid there and though I should probably put it back on as I was not ready to get up. lol. I slept another hour and then my AHI was 3.4? Clear 6, Obstructive 2, Hyp 25

The app said 90% pressure 7.9, Average pressure 6.6 Min pressure is 6 and Maximum pressure is 16.

I am a worrier cause I have read all the bad effects of sleep apnea.  Why am I having so many hypopneas?

Is the main thing to look at the API score? If so, how low should it be? I've read where people say the machine should stay ahead of any episodes.

Any suggestions?  Or do things look ok.  I'm curious what OSCAR might show.

Thank you so much for all your knowledge that you can share that might help me.  I'm alone in trying to figure this out. 

[staceyburke]

The only real answer I can give is for me the ResMed was a difference of day and night from the dreamstation. I had the DS for 5 years and I could NOT get my events down using it. With the DS my events were between 15 to 25  night. When I got the ResMed I have not had more than 4. Saying that there are people on this site that prefer their DS. 

You really need tha SD card - put it in the machine when you seep (a lot of people will put in after thinking they can get the full data) and post. It is the only way to see what is happening with your therapy.

[Sleeprider]

You can buy any standard SD card from 2 to 32 GB and it will work with your machine. They are really inexpensive, and I got one with 16 GB capacity from Amazon for under $6 about a week ago, and it works great right out of the package. It is not a SIM card, see the SD card wiki http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...emory_card You can buy them inexpensively at any drug store, electronics store or Walmart, and you could be all set for tonight.

Your event rate is trending the right direction. Your CPAP is set from 4.0 to 16.0 pressure according to your profile. You need to increase the minimum pressure to be above your current average pressure. You can get your AHI and pressure statistics from your machine, I don't think Dreammapper provides the pressure. Once you get Oscar up and running with a new SD card we can give you more specific recommendations. Based on what most people find comfortable and effective, your minimum pressure should be 7.0, and that should reduce the number of events right away. For your other questions, there is lot of information in the Optimizing Your Therapy article linked in my signature. Give it a read, and when you post a chart, we can again help. You will also see articles on how to Organize Your Oscar Chart and Attaching Files. You will need that information later after you have a card. Be sure to put the SD card in your machine before starting therapy, and don't remove it for a while after you awaken to allow the data to write. You actually seem to be off to a good start, and once you have the CPAP optimized it should get better. I do prefer the Resmed Airsense 10 Autoset for most users because of its more preventive approach to pressure increases, rather than Philips slow response to events. It also provides a true bilevel pressure which is particularly well suited to hypopnea and flow limitation. The easiest time to have made that choice is before you take delivery of a machine. If you can swap, that's great, but if not, we will help you get the most from the Philips, and it's mostly a matter of setting a more narrow range of pressure with the minimum closer to your therapeutic optimum.

I saw you sent me a PM with the same questions. We don't consult or respond to therapy questions by PM, so we will keep responses on the forum, where others can also provide their ideas and input, and members with similar questions can read the responses.

[pen123]

Ok thank you. I will buy a SD card today. Hopefully, I can post what it says tomorrow! Thank you.

[pen123]

I took a pic of the sleep kumbers from my Philips App. There is a reading for pressure. Is that the pressure you were referring to?

[Sleeprider]

The actual pressure statistics are under Info screen at the 90% icon. From the provider manual:

During any given night. the device recognizes the 90% Pressure achieved by the Auto
Algorithm. 90% Pressure is defined as the pressure at which the device spent 90%
of the session time at or below. For example, if the device recognized airflow for 10
hours. and 9 hours were spent at or below 11 cm H20, and 1 hour was spent above
11 em H20, then the 90% Pressure would be 11 cm H20. This screen displays the
nightly value of 90% Pressure for the most recent 1 day time frame. It also displays
the average of these individual nightly values of 90% Pressure over a 7 day and a 30
day time frame (provided the device has at least 7 or 30 days of data respectively). If
the device has only 5 days of data to use for the calculation, the 5 day average value
will be seen under the 7 day display. This screen only displays if the device is in Auto-
CPAP or Auto-Trial therapy mode.

[pen123]

I tried to download a screenshot of what my phone app shows, but I couldn't figure out how to put it in this reply ? Anyway, Monday through Friday, it shows 90% between 7-9. Also, it shows the average pressure for all days in the 6ish range? Does that make sense?

[Sleeprider]

That's perfect. For best efficacy go with the low range of the 90% pressure. A setting of 7.0 should be comfortable and will reduce the number of events significantly. It will avoid a lot of pressure fluctuation which can be disruptive to sleep. Any setting below 6.0 will be less than optimal.

[pen123]

Hi, thanks for the information. I try to download the information off my SD card, but it will not download my computer's old and has a Windows 7 program so I don't know if that's the problem or not. I did turn up my lower pressure to 6.5 last night and my ahi was 1.1 and my hypo apneas were much lower. So thank you for that advice. I know you're saying to go to 7:00 I was just going up slowly. Also I'm going back for a mask reef because the nasal pillows are irritating my nose. Any suggestions on a good pillow mask or a different kind of mask that's not a full mask? Also my insurance claims that I can return this machine and get the ResMed air ten. Do you think that is worth the change? I'll believe it when I see it. The supply place probably will not want me to exchange it but my insurance company says that they should. Thank you

[staceyburke]

Yes a ResMed s10 AUTOSET. There are many different models of s10 some do not give information at all. Be sure it is an autoset or autoset for her (many men use this machine)