[split] FdxMike Therapy Thread: Advice for dialing in pressures?

[Fdxmike]

You folks are a blessing to us who are struggling with CPAP! I'm working on getting my sleep under control but I'm not giving up yet! My graph looks like a horses mane with a bad haircut!  Don't give up sleephead777!

[Sleeprider]

Leaks are out of control here, and we will see much more valuable information if the monthly calendar is minimized. Just click the triangle in the date line. Happy new year.

[Fdxmike]

I'm sorry. I didn't want to take attention away from the original thread gentleman but does this help? Have a wonderful and healthy New Year to you both!

[Fdxmike]

Thank you so much, sir! I used the new Phillips Dreamwear nose pillow two nights ago and numbers were even better. Unfortunately, I woke up with serious under nose pain. It reminded me of 2nd grade when my teacher, Mrs. Trout stuck her fingers in my nose and dragged me to her back office for eating paste! I also got what looks and feels like a painful pimple between my nostrils. I switched to the full face mask last night and I have shared screenshots of the results below. 

[Fdxmike]

Thank you! I started using a steady pressure of 13.6 with max of 17. I no longer use ramp and as of last night, I turned off EPR. It appears that I am still having leaks which are causing apneas..I am using the Resmed full face mask and even shaved my face. I'm confident that I will have everything under control as soon as I get the leaks resolved. I wish I didn't exhale out of my mouth while sleeping because I really want to use the nasal mask. Thank you and the others for being so kind to us newbies! ❤️?

[Fdxmike]

Would that be primarily laying on my back? I am normally a side and stomach sleeper but I'm having difficulty doing that because of the full face mask.. I even have a CPAP pillow. I wish I could use the nasal Dreamwear Pillow mask but mouth taping is a pain and I still get leaks. ?

[Sleeprider]

Fdxmike, we can't know what position you are sleeping in without something like a night camera recording and correlate that to events. I think there is some confusion on both our parts due to crosstalk when you were posting in Sleephead777's post where he seems to be dealing with some positional apnea issues. I don't see that in your charts. Your leaks significantly improved from Nov 30 to Jan 3. With pressure at 11.8-14.6 EPR 3 you have pretty good results with AHI under 1.5. I hope we can focus on any questions you have going forward in this thread.

[Fdxmike]

I am so sorry and I see why you were confused because I was too. i have shared the graph from last Monday with EPR still on and last nights graph with it off. My pulmonologist appointment was yesterday and he didn't like that I changed my pressures, so I told him he has kept it the same and I was still having tons of apneas and his recommendations weren't working. I showed him the results of his order and the results of the changes and asked him what he wants me to put the pressures back down to. He replied, "Don't change them at all, your numbers look great to me." Lol. I guess it hurt his feelings. 

I still need to get everything in check, so this point on, I will only listen to YOUR recommendations because things are falling into place and obviously you know what you are talking about and my doctor doesn't. 

[SarcasticDave94]

The lower your leaks get, the better things are looking overall.

Regarding the pulmonologist not liking your setup and editing your own pressures, too bad. It's your therapy and they feel no pain with bad settings but you do.

[Sleeprider]

Everything looks better with EPR in your charts. Jan 13 has lower event rate than Jan 16 and even shows improvement in tidal volume, and flow limits 0.01 vs 0.11 without EPR. As a result pressure was more steady, and leaks also improved. I would stick with the settings from Jan 13.