New to CPAP and Switching from FFM to Pillows

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
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Pugsy
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Joined: Thu May 14, 2009 9:31 am
Location: Missouri, USA

Re: New to CPAP and Switching from FFM to Pillows

Post by Pugsy » Sun Mar 29, 2015 8:02 am

Yes....explore side sleeping first if you can.

The main advantage to bilevel is the availability of greater than 3 pressure support (right now you are limited to the 3 cm of EPR) and a higher (over 20) pressure but you may not need more than 20.
Example: Bilevel auto with 15 minimum and 20 maximum withe PS of 3 would give you 15 EPAP and IPAP of 18 with the ability to go to EPAP 17 and IPAP of 20 which is what your current machine can do right now with APAP setting of 18 minimum with EPR of 3 and the 20 maximum.

I don't see much actual maxing out of 20 here...so it doesn't look like you need more than 20.
So in your case unless you need more than 3 cm pressure support I don't know that bilevel would offer you anything that you can't get right now. There are some timing adjustments available on the bilevel devices that are not available on the apap/cpap machines that could potentially make the higher pressures a little more comfortable but except for a few people I don't know how critical of a difference it would make.

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crnolen
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Joined: Sat Mar 07, 2015 4:08 pm

Re: New to CPAP and Switching from FFM to Pillows

Post by crnolen » Sun Mar 29, 2015 6:15 pm

Pugsy wrote:Yes....explore side sleeping first if you can.

The main advantage to bilevel is the availability of greater than 3 pressure support (right now you are limited to the 3 cm of EPR) and a higher (over 20) pressure but you may not need more than 20.
Example: Bilevel auto with 15 minimum and 20 maximum withe PS of 3 would give you 15 EPAP and IPAP of 18 with the ability to go to EPAP 17 and IPAP of 20 which is what your current machine can do right now with APAP setting of 18 minimum with EPR of 3 and the 20 maximum.

I don't see much actual maxing out of 20 here...so it doesn't look like you need more than 20.
So in your case unless you need more than 3 cm pressure support I don't know that bilevel would offer you anything that you can't get right now. There are some timing adjustments available on the bilevel devices that are not available on the apap/cpap machines that could potentially make the higher pressures a little more comfortable but except for a few people I don't know how critical of a difference it would make.
Thanks for your help. I tried sleeping on my side during a nap this afternoon and hopefully it works overnight because my AHI dropped to 2.6 during my nap.
No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.