Wow! I feel great!

Last night I had a BiPap titration study. Despite all efforts with CPAP, I've never made in through a full night with it. The high pressures leave me dizzy and feeling like I can't fully exhale. If I set it lower, I feel like the air isn't filling my lungs. Due to anxiety with the mask, I never made it through a cpap titration. Thankfully, I have managed to desensitize myself from the mask anxiety and get used to using a nasal pillow. Even with all of the sleep study wires, I slept great last night. The breathing felt SO natural, like I was just breathing room air. They started me on 8/4 but the tech wouldn't tell me what it ended at, just that it didn't change much. She also told me that I hit all stages of sleep both on my side and supine. I've never done that in a lab before. Also, I occasionally get a sharp pain in my leg then it twitches, and it did that last night too, so I'll be interested to see what they call that. I can't wait to get the results. I never get up before 9am and I feel well rested despite getting up at 5:30am.

Makes me really wonder about the sleep lab studies you had before. They should have tried BiLevel during titration if other levels and modes were not working. They are watching the results live and have control to switch the machine to whatever settings are needed to see improvements or not.

Good to hear you had a good result.... now.

That is a big difference from the story we've heard of your therapy on the Autoset for Her. Hopefully you'll be on track for the right therapy soon. I agree with Krelvin that the original titration could have found this, but there seems to be some kind of need to actually fail a patient on CPAP rather than investigate the best treatment out of the gate.

I think I became too panicky with the mask at all during my original titration "study" for them to do much with it. And that study was a bit of a cluster from the start because it was ordered as just another plain sleep study, when I had already had two of those, so they had to get the order changed.

Interestingly, they had to call to clarify my order again last night. They said that my last sleep study was over a year ago, and they can't do a titration study without a more recent study. Anyone ever hear of this before?

Thatgirl wrote: They said that my last sleep study was over a year ago, and they can't do a titration study without a more recent study. Anyone ever hear of this before?

Never heard of it but that doesn't mean much. Different labs can have different protocols.

Thatgirl wrote:Last night I had a BiPap titration study. Despite all efforts with CPAP, I've never made in through a full night with it. The high pressures leave me dizzy and feeling like I can't fully exhale. If I set it lower, I feel like the air isn't filling my lungs. Due to anxiety with the mask, I never made it through a cpap titration. Thankfully, I have managed to desensitize myself from the mask anxiety and get used to using a nasal pillow. Even with all of the sleep study wires, I slept great last night. The breathing felt SO natural, like I was just breathing room air. They started me on 8/4 but the tech wouldn't tell me what it ended at, just that it didn't change much. She also told me that I hit all stages of sleep both on my side and supine. I've never done that in a lab before. Also, I occasionally get a sharp pain in my leg then it twitches, and it did that last night too, so I'll be interested to see what they call that. I can't wait to get the results. I never get up before 9am and I feel well rested despite getting up at 5:30am.

Additional Comments: Autoset for Her mode 6 min 20 max

If you were using this range of pressures, I can envision circumstances as to why you experienced what you described above.
An improperly configured APAP with certain breathing characteristics could very easily do that.
They obviously DON'T use auto-adjusting machines with ranges of pressures in sleep labs for a reason.


Den

.

Yeah Den, you've mentioned that before. That's why I was excited to actually make it through a real titration study regardless of if I end up going bilevel. I could try straight cpap with the IPAP pressure assigned to me in the titration, no? Or an Autoset mode with it fairly tight around that pressure (+/- 3?)? So even if I don't go bilevel this wasn't all for naught, right?

Might try Autoset 6-11 tonight and see what happens.

Wulfman... wrote:They obviously DON'T use auto-adjusting machines with ranges of pressures in sleep labs for a reason.

that reason, my dear apap hater, is that the lab machines are under manual control.

palerider wrote:

Wulfman... wrote:They obviously DON'T use auto-adjusting machines with ranges of pressures in sleep labs for a reason.

that reason, my dear apap hater, is that the lab machines are under manual control.

BINGO!


Den

.

Thatgirl wrote:Yeah Den, you've mentioned that before. That's why I was excited to actually make it through a real titration study regardless of if I end up going bilevel. I could try straight cpap with the IPAP pressure assigned to me in the titration, no? Or an Autoset mode with it fairly tight around that pressure (+/- 3?)? So even if I don't go bilevel this wasn't all for naught, right?

Without seeing some of your reports, it's hard to know what pressures your machine is going to and what breathing events it's responding to.
If there are lots of snores and flow limitations driving the pressures, that would need to be observed.
But, trying straight pressure or a tight range may improve things.


Den

.

Have you utilized the EPR feature available on your machine at all? You know that EPR at 3 is pretty much what a bilevel machine would do with a PS..Pressure support...of 3...meaning the difference between inhale and exhale is 3 cm.

Along the lines of what Pugsy was asking, if you used a straight pressure of 8 cm. and an EPR setting of "3", you'd be pretty close ( 8/5 )to what they started you at with your sleep study titration ( 8/4 ). Then, you could monitor your data and probably move it upwards a little at a time like they probably did in the sleep study.


Den

.

wrote:8/4

This is twice in 15 minutes that I have seen very low pressure BiPAP settings. My doctor says the pressure will have to be 14 or higher before he prescribes BiPAP. Is my doctor incorrectly biased? Huh again???

Huh? wrote:

wrote:8/4

This is twice in 15 minutes that I have seen very low pressure BiPAP settings. My doctor says the pressure will have to be 14 or higher before he prescribes BiPAP. Is my doctor incorrectly biased? Huh again???

Higher settings or finding pressures to get relief for people who experience aerophagia are a couple of reasons for Bi-level therapy.
I can't comment on whether your doctor is "biased" or not.


Den

.