Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
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Pugsy
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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by Pugsy » Thu Mar 23, 2017 1:35 pm

palerider wrote:I don't understand why people care about a 'baseline'.
Some people just want it for a reference point I guess. Harmless and if it makes them feel better about what they are doing then what the hell.
I have that baseline from the sleep study and never really think about it. Knowing what I now know I would have just gone rogue and got a machine and did it all myself. Might as well have done it anyway because I ended up having to do my own pressure finding anyway.

Besides, if it helps someone actually see who bad things could be...then maybe it will supply a little extra motivation for the nights they are tempted to cheat without the mask.
I don't need to see it...I feel it when I cheat. Like cheating with the nap on the couch "cause my OSA is worse in REM and I most likely won't ever get to REM on the couch so it won't hurt me too bad". The nap always sucks because I always wake myself snorting and snoring. But it is true...I don't get much REM.

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by palerider » Thu Mar 23, 2017 2:00 pm

Pugsy wrote:Besides, if it helps someone actually see who bad things could be...then maybe it will supply a little extra motivation for the nights they are tempted to cheat without the mask.
all I have to think about is how bad was before, not able to watch a whole tv show... and I have no desire to not use the machine.

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by trslp1 » Thu Mar 23, 2017 8:05 pm

Pugsy wrote: But you could try the 4 min and 4 max thing and see how it goes. Just be aware it isn't ideal for a baseline to go on because even 4 cm does some work but it's the best option you have since the machine won't go any lower.
Here is an attempt to determine my baseline by setting the Resmet 10 Airsense in cpap mode max 4 min 4. Maybe I should have left it in apap mode? Maybe it also needs some room to maneuver between max and min before it generates any useful data?

Or maybe it is really telling me something?? No AHI???

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by Pugsy » Fri Mar 24, 2017 4:02 am

trslp1 wrote:Maybe it also needs some room to maneuver between max and min before it generates any useful data?
No.
trslp1 wrote:Maybe I should have left it in apap mode?
cpap mode is fine but cpap doesn't have a minimum or a maximum
trslp1 wrote:No AHI???
It's only 2 hours. Maybe nothing much happened.

SleepyHead is showing whacky settings...not sure what is up with that. Pressure is definitely 4 from the graph but the settings say 10 min and 20 max.

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by trslp1 » Fri Mar 24, 2017 6:56 am

Here is the rest of the night, after changing unit to apap and min of 4 and max of 5? There was a 2 hour nap last evening that made me not ready to head to bed until very late. Very confusing results again?? Why no crazy high AHI??? Should we do another full night that has a more normal sleep pattern?

I feel fine except for the long nap and the short night.

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by Pugsy » Fri Mar 24, 2017 10:06 am

Remember I said that 4 cm offers some therapy value. Looks like you aren't having a truckload of apnea events event at 5 cm (where you pretty much maxed out the pressure which tells you the machine was fighting something).

Is your lack of AHI because of the therapy that 4 or 5 cm offers or because nothing much happened? Dunno...no way to tell using the machine.

If you just HAVE to know what the AHI would be without cpap...only thing left is a sleep study.

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by trslp1 » Fri Mar 24, 2017 11:31 am

Pugsy wrote:Remember I said that 4 cm offers some therapy value. Looks like you aren't having a truckload of apnea events event at 5 cm (where you pretty much maxed out the pressure which tells you the machine was fighting something).

Is your lack of AHI because of the therapy that 4 or 5 cm offers or because nothing much happened? Dunno...no way to tell using the machine.

If you just HAVE to know what the AHI would be without cpap...only thing left is a sleep study.
Since an in hospital sleep study isn't about to happen, my main question is confirming that I really have OSA some other way. The earlier data in the 10-15 pressure range suggests that I do, but this data is more questionable. I might just leave it at this 4-5 range for a few days and see what happens, see how I feel? Is it possible that I get as good benefits from this very limited pressure as I do with 10-15? Maybe I have something other than OSA that just happens to respond well from breathing from a hose??

Sleeping through the night without random wakeup events, and feeling good throughout the day are the real goals here... So far we seem to be on the right path.

Determining the baseline is just to confirm what we think we already know... That I have OSA, and that it is responding well to cpap.

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by Pugsy » Fri Mar 24, 2017 12:03 pm

You could always get a home study...a good quality one though....not just the pulse ox alone.

The fact that your machine wants to increase the pressure at all is a strong indicator that some sort of sleep disordered breathing is going on here.
If it didn't ever want to go above 4 cm...I might wonder but it definitely wants to increase and increase significantly.
Maybe you have more of a UARS thing going on. Maybe you are just lucky and the bulk of any OSA events are eliminated with minimum pressure.

If you are experiencing a reduction in unwanted symptoms usually attributed to OSA or even UARS....hey, that's why we put this stuff on our face every night...to feel better and sleep better.

To me the way your machine responds to whatever it is responding to...tells me that some significant airway restriction is trying to happen and the machine wants to kill it.

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by palerider » Fri Mar 24, 2017 7:06 pm

trslp1 wrote:Determining the baseline is just to confirm what we think we already know... That I have OSA, and that it is responding well to cpap.
what matters isn't whether you've "got" OSA, or how bad it is, or what...

what matters is "do you feel better using the machine than you did without it?"

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by trslp1 » Sat Mar 25, 2017 7:38 am

palerider wrote:
trslp1 wrote:what matters is "do you feel better using the machine than you did without it?"
Yes, and we can easily confirm that by going off cpap for a few days. I should start feeling lousy again.

My wife has had sleep problems longer than I but was taking a sleeping pill. Now she is almost off the med, and I got her to try the machine last night. Here is her graph. Too short I suppose to generate any events, but the pressure was definitely responding. Now to get her to wear it for an entire night and see we what we get for results. Can you infer anything from just the short hour of data we have?

Machine set to 6 / 20

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by Okie bipap » Sat Mar 25, 2017 9:27 am

I finally got my wife on a machine by telling our family doctor her symptoms (stopping breathing, snoring, etc.). The doctor ordered a sleep study for her. I had tried to get her to get a sleep study and she wouldn't do it. After the doctor scheduled it for her, she did it. Her AHI was 48. Right now, she is doing a 30 day test to see if the central apneas clear up. Some nights look good, and other nights are bad. We will find out what the doctor wants to do next week.

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by trslp1 » Fri Mar 31, 2017 6:04 am

Ok, back with more data, here are 2 nights, one with 6/8 apap and the other with cpap of 6 and EPR of 2. Goal was to try and trigger some apnea's and obstructive events and see if we can quantify my OSA without having done a formal sleep study. Can we conclude that my OSA is quite mild? Our earlier data in this thread was at much higher pressures and more events were triggered. Here at low pressure, events are much more limited. Of course without having a formal sleep study we are still guessing, but even with with low pressure I am waking up feeling great, with my head full of Oxygen....

Image
And the flow detail of the 2 obstructive events
Image
Image
Then the other night with 6/8 apap
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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by Pugsy » Fri Mar 31, 2017 10:48 am

trslp1 wrote:Can we conclude that my OSA is quite mild?
Not really. About all we can conclude is that whatever your OSA is (mild, moderate, severe which only goes by AHI) is adequately treated at relative low pressures.
Severity of OSA has nothing to do with pressure needs.
A person can have a quite "severe" AHI with 70 per hour and only need 6 cm pressure and someone else could have a relatively "mild" AHI of say 10 and they might need 20 cm pressure to keep the airway open.

There so much more involved than just the number of events per hour that don't get factored into the criteria for official severity of OSA diagnosis criteria.
There's arousals...there's duration of events...there's oxygen level.

Which is worse....10 events per hour lasting barely 10 seconds each....or 10 events lasting 30 seconds each or 10 events lasting 45 seconds each???
They all would meet "mild" criteria but the effect on the body could may be dramatically different.

When I had my sleep study..my OSA in non REM sleep was only 12...but in REM sleep it was 53...but in non REM my oxygen levels went to 73%...that's really bad...must have been some really long duration events. And as far as REM oxygen levels...I never stayed in REM long enough to get much data that first sleep study because as soon as I hit REM there would be an arousal out of REM. Lord knows what my oxygen level might have been if I had actually stayed in REM for a prolonged period of time.

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by palerider » Fri Mar 31, 2017 11:14 am

trslp1 wrote: Can we conclude that my OSA is quite mild?
only thing I can conclude is you're wasting your time.

'mild/medium/severe' apnea has nothing to do with the pressure needed to treat it.

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Re: Started on Craigslist - Now need a real machine

Post by trslp1 » Fri Mar 31, 2017 1:34 pm

Pugsy wrote:There's arousals...there's duration of events...there's oxygen level.

Lord knows what my oxygen level might have been if I had actually stayed in REM for a prolonged period of time.
Since you have all the data now on the events, have you done any Oxygen monitoring with some some of the units that will integrate with Sleepyhead? Is everything good now, all the time?

Pugsy, I have an almost new RESMED Medium sized Mirage Quattro FFM that I could send you. Just PM me the address