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+--- Thread: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread (/Thread-MaggieL-Better-than-a-Sweaty-Zombie-Meat-Sack-Therapy-Thread)
RE: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread - MaggieL - 04-10-2024
Short on time yesterday, so today I'm posting the daily and zooms of "normal sleeping" vs. OA sleep time. Still have some sinus and eyeball issues, but last night was notable for not de-masking on the regular or getting up with every slight awakening. I did catch myself sleeping on my back a couple of times which might explain some OAs.
RE: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread - UnicornRider - 04-10-2024
Wow, you have nice looking curves! Well at least your Flow Rate wave shapes have nice looking curves.
Almost textbook pretty.
Have you been sleeping with the SCC? I prefer to eliminate as many event flags as possible with the external environment rather than with increasing therapy pressure. I also want you to overcome the acclimation process before increasing pressure, which would eliminate the fuzzy eyeball effect you may be experiencing.
I am really glad to see the reduction in the interruptions in usage during the night, and your consistent bedtime.
Keep on working the whole body and mind wellness approach you have been using.
When you get the Ring O2 stats incorporated into OSCAR we can teach you how to correlate SpO2 drops to your Flow Rate events.
Do you live at a higher elevation?
Keep Posting back, I will share some more of my humor with you.
RE: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread - MaggieL - 04-12-2024
Had a couple of good nights, but last night was a little bumpier. Mostly because I could not get physically comfortable. Spring finally came, so I've been walking 5-7 miles a a day and working out more - my whole body aches. A few more apneas, mostly positional since I was exhausted and didn't shift when I needed to. Will take another run at the cervical collar tonight, but haven't found it comfortable enough to sleep with yet, even after trying what is now my 3rd collar. Still messing about with pillows.
Happy with the fact that I'm consistently get 6 hours of sleep a night, which seems to be my new norm. Cognitively feeling much better and definitely have more energy.
Grateful I bought a second hose - those things take a ridiculous amount of time to dry after being washed! I used the CPAP to dry it out the first time, but that would add more wear and tear on the machine if I did it regularly, so I've left it to dry and it's taken nearly the entire week! Tempted to buy a CPAP dryer, but wary of adding yet more equipment to this whole process.
Other than that, I think it's just more fiddling and fine tuning. Grateful for the guidance!
RE: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread - UnicornRider - 04-12-2024
Exercise and sunlight are very important in the scheme of things associated with a better quality of life and sleep. I like gardening as a passive activity to get practice getting up and down. Most important as we get older.
We have noticed it takes several mask, pillows, and neck braces for the average *PAP user, to find the one that brings on the Goldilocks effect. Then due to the reinvigorated body I lost a bunch of weight,
As a result, my mask & SCC no longer fit, so I had to start searching again for that Goldilock's mask & collar.If you have a heated hose it will dry out with a few minutes use, the whole idea of the heated hose is to prevent rainout, by driving the condensate off the walls of the tube, then prevent the condensate from forming. I live in a "dry" climate so things dry out fairly quickly here, my relatives that live over the mountains by the Puget Sound they have humidity problems. but their hoses still dry out with use. So they wash their equipment shortly before use, so it does not sit around wet.
Now that you have the Pulse/Oximeter data imported into your OSCAR Reports, have you been looking for correlations between Pulse Changes (PC), SpO2 Drops (SD) and disruptions in Flow Rate wave shapes? Pin your top two graphs, then as you scroll down how many spikes in the various charts line up with Event Flags and visible events on your Flow Rate graph.
In this thread we recently discussed various aspects of using Pulse/Oximeter data to help understand our OSCAR results. The time synchronization check that BigWing shared is very useful. Using the Event Tab to run quickly run down the flagged events is another good tip. There is additional good information in that thread.
https://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-Added-an-O2-Pulse-meter-to-my-therapy?highlight=Checkme+O2+max
Do you happen to wear an Apple watch? I use the sleep stage info from mine to also check the OSCAR info. The time spacing of your flow rate disruptions may be indicative of sleep stage, or sleep stage change. Just another tool to help us out.
I am glad to hear you're feeling positive about your CPAP therapy and it's affect's you have experienced. I would like to see fewer disruptions to the CPAP use throughout the night. Perhaps cut back on fluid consumption in the early evening leading up to your bedtime. It took me years before I got that under control. Instead of taking my pills with a tall glass of water, I started taking them with a cup of Sleepytime tea.
The clustered flags towards the end of your session are indicative of positional apnea, chin tuck. So your finding a useable SCC would help take care of those. Leaks are looking good.
Keep up the good work, and post back.
RE: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread - MaggieL - 04-15-2024
Last night I used a cervical collar all night and had the worst night of sleep yet (regardless of numbers, feel terrible). This is the 3rd collar I've tried and the smallest one yet - neck hurts, have headache, and tinnitus is through the roof. I'm not sure that is going to be an option for me. Will be focusing on the pillow issue - may even try going without a pillow. Have some other things to try as well, but too tired to think about it now.
RE: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread - UnicornRider - 04-16-2024
I am confused, I count seven (7) or eight (8) sessions of sleep in your Pressure and Flow Rate interruptions.
Yet your Horizontal Bar graph at the bottom of your left hand panel only shows two sessions of 4Hr 53min and 2Hr 8min each.
Your pressure is reset with each session, I would like to see one continuous sleep session.
Each of your sessions restarting, results in in disturbances indicative of arousals.
I know you are juggling several health issues and trying to find a balance among all of them to find the best quality of life possible.
A continuous session of at least 8 hours uninterrupted sleep is ideal.
It is time to recognize you have acclimated to your minimum pressure of 7.4 cmH2O.
From your left hand side panel, Statistics, your Median pressure is 8.52 cmH2O. It would help your sleep sessions to boost your minimum pressure up, realizing you have other issues to deal with, you should incremental introduce these pressure increases, at your comfort level, to 8 cmH2O.
I suspect you will require additional pressure increases beyond that, I did not get to my current therapy pressure without difficulties, that is why I try to be very conservative in recommending pressure increases.
RE: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread - MaggieL - 04-16-2024
I've been trying to stay at 7 hours CPAP use, but when I start getting desperate, I'll hit the stop button to see how much time I have left. I suspect that explains the interruptions. I woke repeatedly with the collar on. That being said, I had such a better night last night - feel rested, felt like I didn't spend as much time tossing and turning. Around 2:30am, my nasal pillows starting whistling and leaking. I woke only once or twice and one of those times was weather-related (high winds making a lot of racket on the house).
I'm willing to try another incremental boost in my minimum pressure, just wary of ear pressure. I'll try 7.6 for tonight. Thanks!
RE: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread - UnicornRider - 04-16-2024
I believe your body is starting to acclimate to the fit and feel of the mask under pressure. Good job staying the course despite external factors interrupting your sleep session. The more hours you get under the mask with pressure the less of an impediment to sleep it becomes, and the better quality of sleep you will obtain.
RE: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread - MaggieL - 04-21-2024
Had best night yet so far. Still waking up at least once a night, but it's an improvement from the multiple times I've been waking. Have adjusted to the higher pressure pretty well and ear pressure seems fine. Not sure if I need to go up any more with minimum pressure or not, so I thought I'd check in about that. Learning to sleep differently on pillow (more pillow under neck to prevent chin tucking) which has been cutting down on positional apneas. I was worried that my inability to sleep with a SCC would have me stuck, but it's just taking some retraining. Thanks in advance for any input.
RE: MaggieL, Better than a Sweaty Zombie Meat Sack Therapy Thread - UnicornRider - 04-21-2024
Maggie, looking at your Median Pressure in the Statistics area of the left hand panel, you could bring your Pressure Minimum up to 8 cmH2O.
I am glad to her things are coming around for you in the sleep area. Instead of a full SCC I often sleep with a neck pillow designed for sleep on an aircraft or car. In effect tilting the head back like what you are doing with your pillow.