The results are in

Well pre-CPAP my AHI was 32 and first day with at home CPAP I was at 15 and happy, 3 days later with no changes I was at 0.8 and dancing.
Then all the secondary things hit and started bothering me, AHI peaked at 9 after 10 days and I started playing with all the settings OTHER THAN MIN/MAX PRESSURE. (Caps added)<<<<<<------------------------------LOOK HERE
I got AHI back down to 6 then 4 then 4 then 4, posted my graphs and got some great feedback
Turns out that I had turned off the auto start feature very early on and forgotten about it
Also found a new setting that I had not known about; before auto start ramps up the pressure what resting pressure do I want? Turns out that 5.6 works for me

So the point of all this is that this morning my AHI was 1.29 and I had 8 hours of sleep for the first time in 4 months
The other point is that if CPAP is just not working for you and you have not made any changes to the settings since you got the machine, well it's time to start! Advice in this forum is low cost and very high value.

Ahhh, nice that you feel better, but nooo to people randomly playing with their pressures etc. if they don't feel better or think it's all about readjusting the machine. There are very many factors involved and you're playing with lives... not a good suggestion!

" I started playing with all the settings other than min/max pressure" I was pretty sure that I said that I NEVER CHANGED THE PRESSURE. Yes scary and needs to be stressed.

The ONLY non-user setting I adjusted was EPR from 3 to 4 and I changed pre-ramp pressure from 4 to 5.6, still below my min setting of 8.

it is interesting that I found out about all the changes that I did make here on this forum and at no time were there any posts suggesting that there was any danger in doing so. This is why I thought it was okay to post information the way I did, sorry if I was incorrect.

"There are very many factors involved and you're playing with lives... not a good suggestion!" well seems I got my first slap, ouch.

You did nothing wrong. Don't worry about it.
Seems like some people suggest changing even the pressure without reviewing the data anyway when some people are having problems.

Thanks Pugsy, I honestly could not understand how changing the USER settings could be life threating no matter what I changed them to.

I did not say you shouldn't change your settings. I said it was not a good idea to suggest others do it randomly... big difference!

Julie wrote:Ahhh, nice that you feel better, but nooo to people randomly playing with their pressures etc. if they don't feel better or think it's all about readjusting the machine. There are very many factors involved and you're playing with lives... not a good suggestion!

Well I agree "nooo to people randomly playing with their pressures " but again I never said that.
"you're playing with lives" WHAT? where? With user accessible settings really!

"I said it was not a good idea to suggest others do it randomly" Not that I think random adjustment of USER ACCESSIBLE settings will cause damage, I also don't think that random adjustment is the best way to do it either.
I strongly disagree that people should not adjust their user accessible settings to obtain maximum comfort and increase the possibility that they continue their CPAP machine use.

Julie, as I said in another thread, I respect what you say and I take you seriously. And yet in this thread you have accused me of "playing with lives", I take that VERY seriously and am trying hard to understand. Please point out specific USER ACCESSIBLE settings that can cause harm to people, as I am sure the manufacturers would like to know also so they can remove user access to them.

Look, I change my settings when I think it's a good idea... I've also been doing this (OSA/Cpap) thing a long time, but if I didn't misread the post I reacted to, it sounded to me like you were advocating that when people don't feel right about Cpap, they should just experiment with settings - maybe it was the way it was worded, but it seemed to be saying anyone can do anything with settings almost on a whim.

- "The other point is that if CPAP is just not working for you and you have not made any changes to the settings since you got the machine, well it's time to start!"

Just sounded a little flagrant to me.

And I disagree that any settings are harmless just because they're accessible... they're not, and someone relatively new to Cpap who feels lousy one day (or wk) may decide the answer is to set their low pressure to e.g. 18 (you never know ), feel better short term - even if only because of placebo effect - but end up coming back months later with centrals. Why is that so hard to imagine?

Also, not everyone can achieve those ultra-low AHIs like that. I'm usually between AHI of 5 and 10 and I'm OK with that. Played around with pressures and Sleepyhead records and I think that's as good as I can get; being a back sleeper maybe has something to do with it.

PoolQ wrote:it is interesting that I found out about all the changes that I did make here on this forum and at no time were there any posts suggesting that there was any danger in doing so. This is why I thought it was okay to post information the way I did, sorry if I was incorrect.

"There are very many factors involved and you're playing with lives... not a good suggestion!" well seems I got my first slap, ouch.

Yeah it seems like I've seen that suggestion a lot and I bumped mine up as well. So far it's working out great!

I'm so glad you got a good night's sleep! I'm on Day 3 and my energy level is out of this world. I feel like a whole new person. I hope you continue to get better and better!

Perhaps it's my machine, but min/max pressure is NOT accessible to the user unless they have been given the clinician manuals that are available here and other places
I just looked at my machine and the user can adjust:
ramp time, tube temp, humidity level, and mask type.
I see zero danger in any of these settings, however I also have zero idea about what other machines allow users to "play" with.
Given that this is prescription equipment I would not be surprised if the manufacturers started out with even LESS available to the user.

the well it's time to start is from seeing posts from people that have had the machine for weeks and are deciding that it does not work for them without adjusting anything at all on the machine. I think that there are user controls because they want the user to adjust them. I am funny that way. In one of my other posts I suggested that for some things I was going to wait for my next appointment and talk to my Doc about it and a senior member posted a laughing GIF in response.

If someone is using the machine with great results I am not sure if they would change any settings, but if they did I don't think the user setting would cause damage, but might change the effectiveness of the treatment. I would assume that if this happened they would just change the setting back.

I apologize if anything I said sounded flagrant, it was not intended.
I apologize if anything dangerous is available to casual users through the user menus on any other machines. I personally still highly doubt that with prescription equipment that this would be the case.

" it seemed to be saying anyone can do anything with settings almost on a whim" if this was changed to "it seemed to be saying anyone can do anything with USER settings almost on a whim", I would say that yes they can, I do NOT and did NOT recommend it, but NO ONE can STOP them if they really want to, they are USER ACCESSIBLE settings. Period. I personally did not ask anyone if it was okay form me to change my humidity setting and my first change was in the wrong direction for me, I simply changed it one step in the other direction. At no time did I think that my life was in danger and yes actually I was changing it on a whim or best guess

The caps are used not as "yelling" but to highlight the most important part of the sentence for me.

Julie, it is nice that two intelligent people can have a discussion about a subject that they both care about without getting nasty. Thank you. I do understand that when posting we have to be careful what we say as this forum deals with a very important subject. Perhaps we still disagree, I for one will increase my focus about what I am posting and take your input under consideration in the future.

sc0ttt wrote:Also, not everyone can achieve those ultra-low AHIs like that. I'm usually between AHI of 5 and 10 and I'm OK with that. Played around with pressures and Sleepyhead records and I think that's as good as I can get; being a back sleeper maybe has something to do with it.

Back sleeper here also. Most of my changes were for me personally fighting the machine and comfort things. Once I got to sleep I was kinda good, getting to sleep on the other hand would take a long time-just not comfortable with an alien on my face. Before I started using CPAP, I really don't want to think about what I was starting to consider doing. I was in pretty bad shape.

rachelp wrote:

PoolQ wrote:it is interesting that I found out about all the changes that I did make here on this forum and at no time were there any posts suggesting that there was any danger in doing so. This is why I thought it was okay to post information the way I did, sorry if I was incorrect.

"There are very many factors involved and you're playing with lives... not a good suggestion!" well seems I got my first slap, ouch.

Yeah it seems like I've seen that suggestion a lot and I bumped mine up as well. So far it's working out great!

I'm so glad you got a good night's sleep! I'm on Day 3 and my energy level is out of this world. I feel like a whole new person. I hope you continue to get better and better!

I actually asked my Doctor about bumping up my min pressure and he said to keep adjusting the things I was and wait for the one month visit with the pressure. Glad I did, because for me personally, it looks like pressure was not the issue.

So glad to hear that you are doing so well with CPAP! My day 4 was still better that without but had moved away from my peak AHI low. Don't forget about those other settings on the machine, they sure made a difference for me. Good luck!

Well I'll apologize if I didn't get the distinction between User Accessible and otherwise... having only ever used clinician info I probably didn't think about others who don't (yet) use it so didn't get the semantics. Maybe it was the exclamation point that got me , but I didn't mean to suggest you were a wild and crazy guy preying on newbies, etc... then again I can't seem to win here much either as half the things I say are no-no'd by others a lot it seems, no matter which extreme I go to ... and actually I've been impressed by how much you obviously do know about stuff because I see you as a newbie to the forum, if in fact you're not one to Cpap.