"Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

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nmbugs
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"Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by nmbugs » Mon Sep 15, 2014 7:54 am

When I got my S9 Vpap Easy Breathe was turned on. At first I was doing pretty good with low AHIs each night (AHIs 1.2). Then all of a sudden I was running AHIs 12-15 each night and waking up like a zombie.

Three nights ago I turned off "Easy Breathe" and my AHIs are down to 0!!

I wanted to make sure having "easy breathe" turned off doesn't stop recording AHIs, showing them to me in SleepyHead. It seems odd that I would go from 12-15 to 0 just by turning off this feature.

If someone could explain this feature to me I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!

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Pugsy
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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by Pugsy » Mon Sep 15, 2014 8:07 am

Did you turn off Easy Breathe or EPR?
What was the breakdown into each event category of that 12 to 15 AHI?

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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by palerider » Mon Sep 15, 2014 8:36 am

no, it doesn't affect the scoring or recording of events.

though it may affect how you're breathing and responding to the machine.

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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by nmbugs » Mon Sep 15, 2014 10:58 am

Pugsy wrote:Did you turn off Easy Breathe or EPR?
What was the breakdown into each event category of that 12 to 15 AHI?

I will post that tonight. My youngest uses my laptop for his school lessons

The EPR was set to 0. I noticed when I tried using that setting that too increase my events. I turned EPR off after a few days when I first got the new machine in July.

What is odd is how I used the machine for about 6 weeks with low AHI with the Easy Breathe on and then wham all of a sudden I am hitting consistently higher numbers.

Palerider, that's a relief! I was afraid maybe it stopped showing AHIs to patients and only clinicians.

Do you know much about the Easy Breathe feature? I wonder what would cause such a drastic change and what that means about the way I breathe or responding to treatment. Maybe this is just another puzzle piece to figuring out what is all going on with my health.

Thanks!

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Mask: Amara View Full Face CPAP Mask with Headgear
Additional Comments: SleepyHead Software and CMS50F pulse Ox
Since my machine doesn't appear to be listed in the selection:
Resmed Aircurve 10 ASV w/ humidifier and climate line tubing w/ 2L O2. Just restarted therapy after stopping bipap for 1 yr due to complications w/ increased centrals

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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by palerider » Mon Sep 15, 2014 11:23 am

nmbugs wrote:
Pugsy wrote:Did you turn off Easy Breathe or EPR?
What was the breakdown into each event category of that 12 to 15 AHI?
Palerider, that's a relief! I was afraid maybe it stopped showing AHIs to patients and only clinicians.

Do you know much about the Easy Breathe feature? I wonder what would cause such a drastic change and what that means about the way I breathe or responding to treatment. Maybe this is just another puzzle piece to figuring out what is all going on with my health.
first, there is no setting that will change what's written to the SD card and what data you can get via sleepyhead.

as to easybreath, I believe that it changes the shaping of the pressure changes from epap to ipap, making it a more gentle, and less abrupt change.

it's possible you needed a little more pressure, and the easybreath was enough to dampen the delivery of that... (that's a guess)

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nmbugs
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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by nmbugs » Mon Sep 15, 2014 10:46 pm

Pugsy wrote:Did you turn off Easy Breathe or EPR?
What was the breakdown into each event category of that 12 to 15 AHI?
Here are a few:

Hypopnea 0.31
Apnea 0.0
Obstructive 11.81
Clear airway 0.15

Hypopnea 0.24
Apnea 0.0
Obstructive 14.85
Clear airway 0.0

Hypopnea 0.16
Apnea 0.0
Obstructive 9.54
Clear airway 0.31

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Since my machine doesn't appear to be listed in the selection:
Resmed Aircurve 10 ASV w/ humidifier and climate line tubing w/ 2L O2. Just restarted therapy after stopping bipap for 1 yr due to complications w/ increased centrals

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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by Pugsy » Tue Sep 16, 2014 6:26 am

Thank you. Pretty much all OA and very little Central.
I have no idea why changing Easy Breathe would make such a big difference in obstructive events. It doesn't seem like the pressure change is that big of a change.
I can see the changes when using EPR (say at 3) might allow some events to happen so we usually just tell people to compensate with a little more pressure when that happens.
Not everyone sees an increase in events with the use of EPR but some do.
This is the first I have seen someone report a big change when turning Easy Breathe off. In fact I don't recall anyone else turning Easy Breathe off. Logic tells me that the tiny change with Easy Breathe shouldn't make that much of a difference but I also know that there's a lot of this cpap stuff that seems to defy logic. So I am not going to say it couldn't happen.

Seeing such a change with using EPR vs not using EPR wouldn't surprise me in some people where they are using an already low pressure but seeing such a change with Easy Breathe does surprise me.
Sometimes there's a very fine line where the airway will close off when the pressure is below that fine line. Maybe your fine line is extremely "fine" and the slight change in pressure associated with the rounding for comport drops you below that fine line.
Just a guess on my part.

But I always say....whatever works is fair game and if it works for you and you are sleeping great and feeling great then that's what is important.

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nmbugs
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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by nmbugs » Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:29 am

Pugsy wrote:Thank you. Pretty much all OA and very little Central.
I have no idea why changing Easy Breathe would make such a big difference in obstructive events. It doesn't seem like the pressure change is that big of a change.
I can see the changes when using EPR (say at 3) might allow some events to happen so we usually just tell people to compensate with a little more pressure when that happens.
Not everyone sees an increase in events with the use of EPR but some do.
This is the first I have seen someone report a big change when turning Easy Breathe off. In fact I don't recall anyone else turning Easy Breathe off. Logic tells me that the tiny change with Easy Breathe shouldn't make that much of a difference but I also know that there's a lot of this cpap stuff that seems to defy logic. So I am not going to say it couldn't happen.

Seeing such a change with using EPR vs not using EPR wouldn't surprise me in some people where they are using an already low pressure but seeing such a change with Easy Breathe does surprise me.
Sometimes there's a very fine line where the airway will close off when the pressure is below that fine line. Maybe your fine line is extremely "fine" and the slight change in pressure associated with the rounding for comport drops you below that fine line.
Just a guess on my part.

But I always say....whatever works is fair game and if it works for you and you are sleeping great and feeling great then that's what is important.
On nights where I had under 10 AHI I seemed to have more centrals mixed in, according to my machine. Although I have been warned not to rely too much on the vpap to properly record centrals. According to my sleep doctor it often misses centrals and records them as obstructive since the technology for recording these on cpap/vpap isn't the same as the sleep lab monitors. He said if it records centrals they are probably true centrals but did the machine miss any that it recorded as obstructive. Does that sound right?

Here is a night with an AHI of 8.10

Hypopnea 0.54
Apnea 0.0
Obstructive 5.40
Clear airway 2.16

I turned the easy breathe off really by accident. I didn't know what it was and with the name "easy breathe" I was concerned it was something like EPR so I thought I would try it off.

I had another night with an AHI of 0!! I feel wonderful this morning. If it wasn't for me waking up earlier and feeling WAY better rested, I would be concerned something in my machine broken when I switched the easy breathe off....lol. I really hope my body starts catching up on this better sleep. By lunch the exhaustion still is hitting me hard. I told my hubby who was concerned that I was still exhausted and nodding off in the late afternoon that I have gone without decent sleep for so many years, a few nights of good sleep isn't going to fix everything right away. Or is my theory wrong? I know it took a long time for me to suffer the effects of not sleeping so wouldn't it be true of sleeping better? Just taking time for the body to catch up with the better sleep?

I have to wonder now, how many people who are still having higher AHIs with vpap might do better with "easy breathe" turned off. It might be worth an experiment since I am the first to report it (on here ) helping me so greatly . I am still in shock by the difference it has made in me. If anyone is interested in collecting data and looking into this, to see if it isn't just me, I would be happy to send them over my sleepyhead data, just pm me.

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Since my machine doesn't appear to be listed in the selection:
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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by nmbugs » Sat Sep 27, 2014 9:40 am

Just an update. On the 24th I turned my easy breathe back on to see what would happen. Once again I went from 0 AHIs to 9.70 AHI and woke up feeling horrid. I woke up early that morning so I switched the easy breathe back off again and went back to sleep. But this time instead of going back to 0 AHIs I registered a bunch of "apneas" which I have never recorded before. The last few nights the same thing has occurred. Last night it was 7.59 AHI with .80 Hypopneas and 6.79 Apnea.

What the heck did I do to myself ? I broke my wonderful streak of no AHIs. Even though it still wasn't helping the excessive daytime sleepiness I was at least waking up feeling well rested

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Mask: Amara View Full Face CPAP Mask with Headgear
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Since my machine doesn't appear to be listed in the selection:
Resmed Aircurve 10 ASV w/ humidifier and climate line tubing w/ 2L O2. Just restarted therapy after stopping bipap for 1 yr due to complications w/ increased centrals

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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by Pugsy » Sat Sep 27, 2014 11:09 am

Any chance that a change in sleeping position is involved? Like sleeping on your back more which could make a person have more OAs and need more EPAP pressure?
What do your reports look like? Clusters of OAs or spread out randomly through the night?

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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by nmbugs » Tue Oct 07, 2014 8:19 pm

Pugsy wrote:Any chance that a change in sleeping position is involved? Like sleeping on your back more which could make a person have more OAs and need more EPAP pressure?
What do your reports look like? Clusters of OAs or spread out randomly through the night?
Sorry, I thought I responded but I guess I didn't hit post.

No, I cannot sleep on my back. I mainly sleep on my left side.

For the clusters, it depends on the night. Usually there will be back to back clusters of "unspecified apneas" anywhere from 3-8. Then I have nights like last night where they were mainly spaced out, several minutes apart. The nights when they are clustered I wake up feeling horrid, with a headache. Last nights sleep wasn't too bad but I am not waking up refreshed like the nights with 0 AHIs!!

I am really disappointed with my sleep doctor. When I tried to talk to him about the high AHI prior to shutting off the easy breathe he said "oh they weren't too bad and now they are better". Couldn't/wouldn't answer why easy breathe would make such a difference, or why they went from 0 to having "unspecified".

Pugsy, you are very knowledgeable in apneas. Is there any correlations between MS and apneas? My doctors think I have it, at least according to my MRI. Not sure if the neurologist will put me through a spinal tap or not, my mother has it too. My one doctor said that could be the reason for my hypoxia which wasn't fully corrected from my ASD repair. I try not to google these things because then I will just get obsessed and depressed. The neurological changes I have gone through the last few months have been depressing enough, especially my vision. I thought my ASD repair was going to give me my photography back but I cannot see what I am focusing on now I just wonder how much all of the problems I have had the last 2 years were all warning signs. I asked all these specialists if any of this could be neuro, especially the lungs and they all said no.

I appreciate all and any help. Thanks!

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Mask: Amara View Full Face CPAP Mask with Headgear
Additional Comments: SleepyHead Software and CMS50F pulse Ox
Since my machine doesn't appear to be listed in the selection:
Resmed Aircurve 10 ASV w/ humidifier and climate line tubing w/ 2L O2. Just restarted therapy after stopping bipap for 1 yr due to complications w/ increased centrals

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Re: "Easy Breathe" Tech confusion

Post by Pugsy » Wed Oct 08, 2014 2:45 am

I know about apneas because I have them and have studied up on them. I know very little about MS because I haven't studied on it. You probably have done more reading on it than I have. MD...yes because it can cause muscle weakness and the diaphragm is a muscle. I know next to nothing about MS.

It's late and I just got home. I will try to find some time tomorrow (or today I guess it is) and do some reading.

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