[CPAP] Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - Printable Version +- Apnea Board Forum - CPAP | Sleep Apnea (https://www.apneaboard.com/forums) +-- Forum: Public Area (https://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Forum-Public-Area) +--- Forum: Main Apnea Board Forum (https://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Forum-Main-Apnea-Board-Forum) +--- Thread: [CPAP] Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! (/Thread-CPAP-Excited-Getting-new-to-me-cpap-machine-today-after-20-years) |
RE: Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - MikeBear - 02-17-2018 This makes no sense to me, but maybe it will to one of you for suggestions: My original machine was set FIXED to 7 cmH20. No Aerophagia to speak of, but it was a brick, so I have no data to tell how well it worked for me. Anyway, with the Airsense 10 Autoset, I've been running pressures at 9 - 14 for a while, as when I UPPED it a couple weeks ago eventually to 10.6 - 15, I caught a bad case of Aerophagia that I'm still fighting as it seems to have gone into Gastritis. So I lowered pressures since then back to the 8 - 12, then a few days later to the 9 - 14, and I started Nexium yesterday to fight the gastritus. Anyway, based on my numbers of the machine fairly quickly going above 10~ by itself, (see previous charts up thread) I thought that maybe 9 as lowest was a tad low, and I should try upping it a bit. So last night I UPPED just the minimum to only 9.4, and it was NOT GOOD! Things went all to heck, and I definitely got additional Aerophagia last night because of this. Looks like I'm going to have to lower my pressures again until I can get the Aerophagia completely resolved, and just suffer with a higher AHI during that time. I guess being tired and drowsy with some headaches BEATS the heck out of a case of Aerophagia... Any comments? It appears to me that I may never be able to go above 9 - 14~ and stop getting Aerophagia. RE: Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - jaswilliams - 02-17-2018 How about increasing the pressure but also increasing the epr to 3 ? That may help the swallowing of the air ? RE: Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - Walla Walla - 02-17-2018 If you have a full face mask you might try that. I always thought there was more chance of Aerophaia with nasal pillows than a full face mask. I don't have any data to back that up. It just seem that with pillows providing a more direct stream the chances were higher of getting air into the stomach. RE: Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - Sleeprider - 02-17-2018 It looks like flow limitations drive your pressure. Flow limits at this level are not a problem by themselves, and your residual events are mainly CA, which shows a sensitivity to pressure. I think it's safe for you limit maximum pressure, and you might find moving EPR from 2 to 3 actually reduces flow limitation. The only thing to watch in limiting pressure is if it increases OA and H events, more than you are comfortabl. e with. You're doing great with the therapy, and I recall what a curmudgeon you presented in your first posts that saw no reason to upgrade to a newer machine, and how the new machines were too quiet. It's been entertaining to watch the process and progress. RE: Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - MikeBear - 02-17-2018 (02-17-2018, 09:06 AM)Sleeprider Wrote: It looks like flow limitations drive your pressure. Flow limits at this level are not a problem by themselves, and your residual events are mainly CA, which shows a sensitivity to pressure. I think it's safe for you limit maximum pressure, and you might find moving EPR from 2 to 3 actually reduces flow limitation. The only thing to watch in limiting pressure is if it increases OA and H events, more than you are comfortable with. Oh, it for sure has been a process, and there definitely has been progress! I now know a lot that doesn't seem to work for me, LOL. So you think stay 9 - 14 but with EPR 3, or go to 10 - 14 with EPR 3? P.S. I do not have an FFM, only nasal pillow masks. I have a Swift 2, a Swift LT, a Dreamwear (both nasal "holes" (leaks) and Gel pillows (works ok)) the Airfit P10, and a Nuance Pro (never used yet) RE: Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - Sleeprider - 02-17-2018 Just leave pressure the same and try the EPR. If you need a higher pressure we will know. RE: Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - ajack - 02-17-2018 Your AHI is good, I would work on the leaks and the Aerophagia Half the time you are over the median 11.7 and I think is when the Aerophagia would be happening, I would be tempted to choke the max pressure back a bit, with the 95% at 13.7, I'd try 13-13.4 and see if that helped. I would even be tempted to try 12.6 If the OA and H rise too much and it doesn't help the gas, you can increase it back to 14. When the gas is sorted, you might like to raise this a bit and have it 2cm above the 95% number, to give the machine room to move. This may not help, but it can't hurt. As well as putting the head of the bed on bricks, so the bed was on a slope. I found a change of diet helped my GERD. It's worth googling: GERD low carb When the valve at the top of the stomach isn't inflamed and scared by acid, it seals better. RE: Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - MikeBear - 02-17-2018 (02-17-2018, 06:20 PM)ajack Wrote: Your AHI is good, I would work on the leaks and the Aerophagia Thanks! See posts 53 and 54 in this thread. We discovered that my Airfit P10 mask reads at least 8.40 higher leak baseline really being zero 0 baseline on my particular Airsense 10 machine. Apparently this happens in certain cases. I confirmed this by replacing my hose with a brand new one (to make sure there were no microleaks from it), and then wearing the mask while I was wide awake and making sure there were NO mask leaks. Yet it still read high. So at least that amount has to be subtracted from the leak numbers. Last night was a bit of an anomaly, as pressures shot higher, and I was a little more restless (I think I rolled on my face as I lost my belly pillow which stops that) which probably caused the slightly higher leaks than normal for me. Also GERD, yep, I have it due to a hiatal hernea. I take Pepcid every night for it. It's usually very well controlled. However it seems to have also gone into a bit of Gastritis now because of the aerophagia. I also have asthma and chronic bronchitis (so that version of COPD) I have to sleep with my head raised on several pillows, as when I lay flat, my AHI hits the roof and I can't easily breath in that position anyway. I've also had a septoplasty, UPPP, and turbinate reduction after my original sleep study. So I am not surprised at all that Flow Limitations tend to now be driving my pressures. I wasn't on an autoset machine all these years though, or data capable to tell me. I stayed too complacent all these years, and never followed what was going on with cpap therapy until now. I'm also a bit OCD, so now that I've decided to pay attention to that, I literally can't stop until I've got it figured out and tweaked as best it can be for me. But I'm obviously pushing it too fast. For tonight, I'm going to keep pressure where it is, but UP the EPR from 2 to 3 as Sleeprider mentioned and see what happens. If the Aerophagia acts up a bit again tonight, I'll try your suggestions. RE: Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - MikeBear - 02-18-2018 Ok, last night the only change I made was I upped EPR to 3. Otherwise pressures stayed at 9.4 - 14. The Flow Limitations are slightly better, yet the Centrals and such went WAY up from yesterday. I do have a tiny bit of Aerophagia from it, but tolerable. I think it would be even better tolerable if I didn't have the Gastritis hanging on from the original bout of Aerophagia. I also definitely feel more tired than yesterday. Closer to what I tended to have with my original brick cpap machine and the set pressure of 7. Any comments? Where do I go from here? Do I ride this for a while and see what happens or should I slightly UP the minimum pressure right away? RE: Excited! Getting new (to me) cpap machine today after 20 years! - Walla Walla - 02-18-2018 Truthfully I'd leave everything set to where you feel comfortable until you get over the Gastritis. Your AHI is still good at AHI of 2. Once you get to the point you feel you can increase the pressure I'd do it slowly until you get where you what to be. |