gregkdc1 wrote:It took me a little while to try some experimenting. For starters a tried a new chin strap and although I feel better when using it my AHI has gone up while using it. I think the reason why I feel better with it is because the leak rate has gone down quite a lot while using it and I remember waking up only a couple of times a night instead of half a dozen. So quality of sleep has improved. Here is the screen shot from last night.
WITH THE CHIN STRAP
Here is a typical night WITHOUT the chin strap.
Here is a screen shot of my sleep with a full face mask. Even though it looks good I had the worst night sleep of all with this mask and felt completely terrible the next day.
I dug out the results of my sleep study and the numbers were different then what I remembered. Obviously my pressure was set to 10, I swear they told me 13 after the study was done. My AHI was 51 during REM sleep and my O2 sat got down to 69%. I really do think that most of my medical conditions are caused by apnea as I have had this all of my life and it was never treated until just a few years ago. It just so happens that severe chronic apnea causes a condition known as pseudo cushing's syndrome (basically chronic high cortisol levels). It is funny that when I talked to the endocrinologist about my osteoporosis he grilled me on any past cortisol medication use, but then never tested me for high levels. I have a follow up appointment with him in a few months and I will bring this up to rule it in or out. Also I have recently started taking Androgel and I have noticed that the AHI has gone up a little from my past numbers.
I really don't want to wear a face mask in fact the smaller the mask the better, I am a stomach sleeper and every time I try to lay face down the mask smashes into my face, I guess another sleep study is in order. Would it help to have my machine switched to AUTO mode instead of the fixed pressure?
I doubt if Auto mode would help at this point.
Since you're using an EPR setting of "3", with a pressure of 10 cm., your "effective" pressure at the point of end-of-exhale/beginning-of-inhale is only 7 cm.
You might experiment with increasing your pressure by one centimeter for several nights to a week at a time. See what happens as you get closer to 13 cm. And, since they don't use any exhale relief in sleep studies, the 10 cm. / 13 cm. thing leaves some questions open for experimentation.
Do you have an actual copy of your prescription? If not, you should have one and need to get one.
Did you sleep on your stomach during your sleep study?
I'd say you've got a lot more experimenting to do before you throw in the towel for another sleep study. Except for certain aspects, most of them (beyond the first one) are somewhat dubious in value.
Den
.
(5) REMstar Autos w/C-Flex & (6) REMstar Pro 2 CPAPs w/C-Flex - Pressure Setting = 14 cm.
"Passover" Humidification - ResMed Ultra Mirage FF - Encore Pro w/Card Reader & MyEncore software - Chiroflow pillow
User since 05/14/05
