New To BiPaP with 12 ahi

Hello,

I just received my BiPap machine yesterday. It's a ResMed aircurve 10 vauto, pressures set 13-17. I felt like I slept fairly well using the machine but woke up a few times with gas, bloating and abdominal pain. This is only the 1st night on and I'm sure I need get used to things.

I installed Sleepy head and imported my nights sleep. My ahi is 12.18, looks like OSAs are being treated at .23, but clear airway index was 11.84. I don't have the data from the 2 in lab sleep studies yet but I do know I had less than 1 hour of sleep on the 1st one and only a few on the 2nd. My in home test showed an ahi of 68 with many central apneas.

Is this normal to start out with a clear airway of 11.84 on a new machine or should I let my Doc know? What's the best way to reduce the gas and bloat?

I'll post the sleepy head data shortly...

Thanks!

Sleepy head screen shots:

By all means do let yor doc know about both the bloating and centrals. But do stay tuned here as many docs won't know how to deal with this.
Dl the FREE Sleepyhead software to check your progess daily.

Welcome! There are some people here who are very knowledgeable about BiPAPs (and ASV) that have not posted yet. Hopefully they'll be along soon to help!

How many centrals did it show on the first diagnostic sleep study done at home without cpap? How many is "many"?

Are you on any medications that could suppress respiration...specifically like pain meds of any kind?

Did you spend a lot of time awake with the mask and machine on last night...meaning is it possible that some of those CAs could be related to awake breathing?

You really need to get copies of the 2 sleep studies to see all the particulars. It's real important to know if the centrals were really numerous without cpap or if they just got worse with cpap.

For the gas and bloating...if it's really bad it looks like you could safely reduce the pressure settings a bit and not impact the effectiveness of the Obstructive apnea part of things...your OA and hyponea count is really low and the higher pressures aren't going to help the centrals anyway.

When my wife first started her treatment, she had a lot of centrals at her prescribed pressure. The doctor started her off at a much lower pressure and brought it up slowly (2 cm per month) until she go to the target pressure. The number of centrals would increase for a few nights every time they raised the pressure, but they would lessen within two or three nights.

xxyzx wrote:

Okie bipap wrote:When my wife first started her treatment, she had a lot of centrals at her prescribed pressure. The doctor started her off at a much lower pressure and brought it up slowly (2 cm per month) until she go to the target pressure. The number of centrals would increase for a few nights every time they raised the pressure, but they would lessen within two or three nights.

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if you have transitionals they can go away
but if the centrals were primary they never go away
and the bipap and high pressure makes them worse

Mindlessly arguing with someone's report of *facts* that were *experienced* makes you look more the fool.

Been on bipap for a bit over a week now, ahi still remain high, between 9 and 15 all CAs.

They did see centrals on my titration. Will these go away after awhile or are they just junk?

I have a follow up this coming Friday, what should I ask my doc? Should I try lower pressure or different machine?

Here's my titration:


My latest SH data from last night:



Thanks!

Since you have an appointment Friday I would be talking to the doctor about all this.
There's not enough time to get a different machine and your doctor would have to be on board anyway...and we don't know that you need a different machine at this point.

You could try a lower pressure and see if the centrals reduce.
But you really need to be asking these questions of your doctor.
We have no way to know for sure if these centrals are related to pressure or if they are SWJ or whatever.

I would think that if they were pressure related and since you are using a fixed bilevel pressure that there wouldn't have times with no centrals and then times with lots of them. I would expect centrals all night long if that were the case.
But you never know and you have a very soon coming up appt with your doctor so I would be bringing all this up with him.