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+--- Thread: Can someone help me with these flow rates? (/Thread-Can-someone-help-me-with-these-flow-rates)
RE: Can someone help me with these flow rates? - emos12 - 01-29-2018
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Here are some portions of last night.
RE: Can someone help me with these flow rates? - Sleeprider - 01-29-2018
emos12, these results are somewhat better. Compared to yesterday, the inspiration time is shorter and expiration longer (2.14/1.64 on Jan 28 vs 2.54/1.44 on Jan 16) . The distortion of the wave form is not nearly as acute, and your therapy time is increasing. Your event rate is significantly lower and no periodic breathing . With a pressure of 8-12, your median was 9.0 and you didn't hit the maximum setting, so it appears we are near the sweet spot based on events and machine behavior. I imagine this is more comfortable than the 12.5 average and 14.5 maximum from before?
Good progress. It would help to see a graph where the whole night is shown. Also, please minimize the monthly calendar by clicking on the triangle on the date line. The monthly calendar provides no useful information and is obscuring more useful data.
Flow limitation is still very evident, but let's keep these settings for now and see what trend emerges.
RE: Can someone help me with these flow rates? - emos12 - 01-29-2018
Yes It seems there is some improvement. Yes the mean was 9 but does the dreamstation react to my flow limitations? who knows. I will leave it like this for a week so we can see the trend like you said. One more thing, what makes the inhalation a limited one? Do you look at the form of the wave for instance the more pointed the better or is it about the number on the left side of the graph that needs to be high. Also I seem to have a lot of waves that during inhalation consists of two "little mountains" as if i catch my breath to make the last effort to inhale again, you know what I mean?
I appreciate the help and will post my results here with graphs of the whole night shown as well, at least this gives me some confidence !
RE: Can someone help me with these flow rates? - Sleeprider - 01-29-2018
A normal inspiration would normally increase in flow rate quickly, smoothly peak and diminish back to zero as exhale begins. Yours starts hesitantly and sometimes peaks, and other times trails off in a downward slope which indicates flow limit. Normally a person uses respiratory effort to inhale and that results in a strong inward flow. Exhale is usually passive and in most people takes longer than inhale. It's hard to know exactly where exhale ends and inspiration beings in your graphs.
On your low rate graphs, you might want to right-click the left margin and select dotted lines and put a zero flow line in. Normally that helps to separate inhale form exhale.
RE: Can someone help me with these flow rates? - emos12 - 02-18-2018
So I tried to sleep with these pressures and post the graphs like we discussed before. Unfortunately I still feel like crap ! Even beginning to doubt if my tiredness is from UARS/OSA cause I literally a zombie all day, its killing me ! So these are the charts , does it look better now?:
RE: Can someone help me with these flow rates? - Sleeprider - 02-18-2018
Very good job on the graphs. We can clearly see the flow rate wave-form, and there is an odd anomaly that appears like a brief inhale immediately before the main inhale begins. That may be related to your machine's Flex setting. I think the biggest problem here is a total of 6.5 hours of therapy that is fragmented into at least 4 different sessions with different pressures. I'd be exhausted after a night like that. Your event rate is very acceptable. You do need to choose a pressure and stick to it for a whole night and quit making changes all night long.
Let's focus on why you are having trouble staying asleep and getting up to make changes. What's going on?
RE: Can someone help me with these flow rates? - emos12 - 02-18-2018
I did not change the pressures, I am using the ramp setting at 7,5 and normal pressure at 11. I did not mention that during the second big gap where there are nog flow rates I just slept without the CPAP because I just wake up so horribly, anxious and then just want to breath for my own. I just feel very out of breath and then with the CPAP on I get kind of anxious and claustrophobic
Moreover I have a 7 month old kitten who is (most of the night ) sleeping next to me but sometimes wakes me up by walking in the room.
The most frustrating thing is that after I wake up every 2 hours I feel HORRIBLE and then just feel like: "its not working" and then put of the mask. If you look at the flow rates it seems as if the pressure is not high enough to tackle the flow limitations am I right? I know I should wear the mask trhoughout the whole night its just so frustrating that after trying and trying it just doesnt work but I am very determined to make it work!
RE: Can someone help me with these flow rates? - Sleeprider - 02-18-2018
For some reason your CPAP was set on a minimum pressure of 11.0 with flex from 23:00 to 00:15. The next session appears to drop to 7.5 with excursions to 11.0, and stabilized at 11.0 after 03:15. The final session is again at 7.5-11.0. This is pretty weird behavior. If 7.5 is comfortable, just use that as minimum pressure and see if you need more, but turn off ramp.
RE: Can someone help me with these flow rates? - emos12 - 02-19-2018
Thanks for the tips sleeprider.
So I turned of the ramp and these are my results from last night , pretty weird that my AHI is all up again with the hypoapnea's. You can see that the pressure maxes out up to 15. What do you think about these results really do not know what to think about it .
RE: Can someone help me with these flow rates? - ajack - 02-19-2018
going by that chart, I think you will finish up around min 13. I'd start increasing it 1cm a night, till the oa/h clear. Or until position apnea is suggested, if you're at your 95% pressure and still have large events.
You also seem to have the CA flag turned off.