A-Flex - First Night

[roster]

I am starting to see some better results with a pressure of 18 - 20, A-Flex setting 3 and some tweaking with three different masks.

For those of you who can look at the reports and give me some advice, which should I post, Encore Pro or Analyzer? Which specific reports or graphs?

[Wulfman...]

I am starting to see some better results with a pressure of 18 - 20, A-Flex setting 3 and some tweaking with three different masks.

For those of you who can look at the reports and give me some advice, which should I post, Encore Pro or Analyzer? Which specific reports or graphs?

Encore Pro - specifically the "Sleep Therapy Daily Details" reports.

Den


.

[socknitster]

I second Wulfman's suggestion. Several days of daily details can really show you what is happening.

Analyzer is very helpful to look at long term info, but not short term. My graphs from Analyzer are very interesting showing pre, during and post tonsilectomy surgery. Can you say bell curve?

Jen

[gasp]

If the backpack alone would do it, I'd choose it over the cpap Laughing Laughing Laughing .

Actually, the backpack is my plan if the electricity ever goes off for an extended period of time. I do have a battery backup,but we did have that one outage that lasted a few days one time.

We lost electricity for around 5 days last winter. My UPS won't keep me powered that long! I can't imagine having a generator for my APAP!

[Snoredog]

If the backpack alone would do it, I'd choose it over the cpap Laughing Laughing Laughing .

Actually, the backpack is my plan if the electricity ever goes off for an extended period of time. I do have a battery backup,but we did have that one outage that lasted a few days one time.

We lost electricity for around 5 days last winter. My UPS won't keep me powered that long! I can't imagine having a generator for my APAP!

[roster]

I saw an ENT today who is often referred apnea patients. He did an airway endoscopy on my first visit.

Very quickly he took me to an examination room set up for this. He put me in the chair and used a pressurized device to shoot some anesthetic up each nostril. There was a tv in front for the patient and one behind that he looked at to guide the endoscope.

He showed me very large turbinates in each nostril. Each septum had 's' shapes. He showed them clearly to me and pointed out the features. He went as far as the vocal cords and showed me that they were slightly irritated.

He had me say 'heeee' a couple of times and then 'cookie'. He said the vocal cords and box were not blocking the air flow. He said the base of my tongue is slightly oversize and he would not have predicted severe osa from this.

He was still surprised that I require a pressure of 19 or 20. This Friday I will have a scratch test for allergies. He wants me to use a nasal saline rinse every morning follow by Rhinocort for the next four weeks then he will have another look.

Options are turbinate reduction/septum surgery or saline rinse/Rhinocort every morning for the rest of my life. He seems to be leaning to surgery unless the allergy test reveals something unusual or the saline rinse/Rhinocort treatment yields tremendous results.

With the nasal passages flowing better, he believes I may require a much lower cpap pressure and that I probably can train myself to stop mouth leaking/breathing. He talked briefly about Bernouli principle and the Venturi effect and said air pressure applied through the nose can more easily move the tongue from blocking the airway as compared to delivering it vida the mouth (Snoredog's oft point). Personally I am leaning toward the surgery and would like to hear comments from anyone who had it.

One thing of interest here, he said cpap patients should use the nasal rinse in the morning and not at night. This is because they don't do so well when they use it at night. I don't know if I saw this is our forum before.

I have a couple of nights of Encore Pro details in a pdf file and would like to post them. What is a good free web site to post these on? Apparently PhotoBucket doesn't take them.

Thanks.

[RosemaryB]

I have a couple of nights of Encore Pro details in a pdf file and would like to post them. What is a good free web site to post these on? Apparently PhotoBucket doesn't take them.

I think that there's a way to make your pdf files into jpg or gif files. I have a version of acrobat reader that came with my scanner that does that, but I suspect that there's some free software out there that will do it too.

Perhaps you get the pdf page on the screen and do a Printscreen command to make it work. I'm not sure how to do this, but maybe someone on the forum can advise you.

[socknitster]

Rooster,

I've had turbinate reduction/septoplasty (also had adenoids removed at same time). The difference is astonishing in how easy it is to breath. If your turbinates and septum are in bad shape, no amount of saline is going to make them shrink. However, if they are mildly inflamed, I think you will see a big difference. You might even want to add claritin or benadryl after your skin test is over. Don't take it before the skin test because you can screw up the results.

My guess is they will tell you that you are allergic to dust and pollen, like most of the rest of us. YOu might consider taking a trip to the Target bedding dept and pick up some allergy covers for your mattress and pillow. They don't cost much and can really help. I've been using them for years and also use them for my son.

I'll be curious to hear what your skin test results are.

If I've been outside in windy weather during pollen season, a saline flush either with simply saline (preservative free aerosol) or homemade with the neti pot, is absolutely refreshing and can clear up congestion pronto. Morning or night? I don't know if it makes a diff. I just use it when I am stuffed up or my nose is so itchy I could just claw my nose off.

Jen

[roster]

........ If your turbinates and septum are in bad shape, no amount of saline is going to make them shrink. ........

The ENT did not prescribe saline rinses to directly help my turbinates. He prescribed the rinses to remove mucous from the nasal linings so that more of the cortisone spray will be absorbed. This was learning for me.

[socknitster]

Yes this makes total sense.

However, saline rinses are also known to have an anti-inflammatory effect. Minor compared to steroid spray, of course, but helpful nonetheless. Especially at simply mechanically WASHING AWAY the allergens. That can go a long way to decreasing your symptoms. Also, if you spend a lot of time outside during the day it would behoove you to rinse your nose and wash your hair before bed. Pollen etc really likes to stick to hair, fall on your pillow and go up your nose. Of course the filter on your machine probably helps eliminate that, now that I think of it.

Jen

[gasp]

If the backpack alone would do it, I'd choose it over the cpap Laughing Laughing Laughing .

Actually, the backpack is my plan if the electricity ever goes off for an extended period of time. I do have a battery backup,but we did have that one outage that lasted a few days one time.

We lost electricity for around 5 days last winter. My UPS won't keep me powered that long! I can't imagine having a generator for my APAP!

[wabmorgan]

Options are turbinate reduction/septum surgery or saline rinse/Rhinocort every morning for the rest of my life. He seems to be leaning to surgery unless the allergy test reveals something unusual or the saline rinse/Rhinocort treatment yields tremendous results.

I had Septo-rhinoplasty last year..... I could tell a BIG differance after packing was removed.

However..... I was later dianosed with allgeries as well:(

Simply Saline has became my best friend:)

[socknitster]

wabmorgan,

Simply Saline is a life-saver for me too. The other bottled salines on the market contain a preservative that I am now allergic to. Nothing like using a product like that when you already have allergies and the tissue is inflamed--to give you yet another allergy. Benzalkonium chloride is the preservative.

I use simply saline on my son too--have since he was a baby. Nothing like power washing the boogers out of a kids nose so they can breath. Simply saline and a stack of tissues has come in handy more than once.

jen

[wabmorgan]

I also recently found another product similar to Simply Saline. It is called "Breathe Again" http://www.sinomarin.net
(The local wally world was out of Simply Saline... so I tried it.)
I have had good results with it as well.

[echo]

One thing of interest here, he said cpap patients should use the nasal rinse in the morning and not at night. This is because they don't do so well when they use it at night. I don't know if I saw this is our forum before.

Hm, once I did a saline rinse (well, warm water and salt) one evening, a few hours before bed. Woke up the next morning stuffed up beyond belief. I think it's because you loosen up everything, but if you don't allow enough time for it to drain out naturally, it will get pushed further back into your sinuses with the pressure from the xPAP. Makes sense to me.

Hope it all works out for your rooster, surgery or no surgery. Sorry I can't help more, I have zero experience in this department.