Aging & Changing Sleep Patterns

D.H. wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 11, 2018 9:02 am

I disabled the ramp back in 1999 and never had any use for it since (four machines later). I don't even think all CPAPs had ramps at the time.

I have never felt the need to use ramp but then my pressures aren't particularly high so I don't know what I would have done back in the beginning and my starting pressures were higher.

Doesn't matter what I do though..doesn't matter what any of us does...it only matters what the individual does and what they are comfortable with and want to do.
Some people like ramp and that's fine...it's their treatment and their choice no matter what their starting pressure is.

Further background. I cannot remember when I last slept through the night. I always have one or more pee breaks. Yes, I'm on meds for that. So I have two types of falling asleep. One is when I am very tired when I first go to bed. The second is in the middle of the night when I am a lot less tired as I have slept for some hours. Therefore I am trying to find one machine setting that works in both situations as I don't want to have to select different machine settings when half asleep!!!!

pugsy wrote:If it bugs you that you think the machine isn't getting up to pressure fast enough

Not the case. Apologies if I misled you.

"Ron AKA" wrote:You hopefully do not notice the ramp up and fall asleep before the 20 minutes is up

That will work for my initial falling asleep. But not for my getting back to sleep as the noise and air movement even at low pressures can keep me awake. At the moment Auto gives me the quietest going to sleep environment for both falling asleep conditions. I am not aware of any problems occurring between when I actually fall asleep and when the final pressure is reached.

Thanks for all your comments,
Chris

tonyhap wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 11, 2018 11:44 am

That will work for my initial falling asleep. But not for my getting back to sleep as the noise and air movement even at low pressures can keep me awake. At the moment Auto gives me the quietest going to sleep environment for both falling asleep conditions. I am not aware of any problems occurring between when I actually fall asleep and when the final pressure is reached.

We all are different, but I find the new Auto Ramp feature equally good for the initial bedtime as well as for the after P breaks. The key is getting that Ramp Start pressure right. I did a two week trial on F&P new SleepStyle model machine. It had a feature I think was called SenseAwake or something like that. It detects when you wake up in the morning or in the night, and ramps pressure back to a set pressure. I recall thinking to myself when I woke up in the night, that this is nice and comfortable, but I would rather be asleep!! Interestingly that machine lacked the auto ramp, and was rather crude in that aspect.

Bummer...you need a machine that will do a split night at different settings...and it can't do that.
I don't know any that would.
Long time ago we had machines that would split the night between cpap and apap mode but none ever let people split ramp settings.

Which sleep onset is the most difficult for you to obtain...initial at the beginning of the night or the sleep onset after the pee break?

One thought and I have no idea how viable it might be...
Respironics has a Smart Ramp setting similar to ResMed's Auto Ramp

BUT

with Respironics machine you push a button to start the ramp whenever you want it. If you don't push the button the ramp doesn't come on.

Or consider maybe apap capable machine where you could start the pressures out much lower and not have to go to 14 until later...no more fixed pressure. Heck, maybe you wouldn't even need fixed at 14 all night anyway.

Pugsy wrote:Which sleep onset is the most difficult for you to obtain...initial at the beginning of the night or the sleep onset after the pee break?

My observations are that sleep onset gets more difficult as the night progresses because I have less deep need for sleep as the night progresses. If I wake at 4 or 5am, I may not be able to get to sleep with the mask on. But I can with the mask off.

The good new thing for me is the data visible using SleepyHead. So after getting a few more baseline nights of data, I will start to play with more variables, including a lower pressure setting.(!!)

Regards,
Chris