Started CPAP - now I am more tired...

I never had tiredness/fatigue really... blood pressure was pretty good too. I just snored really bad which is what got me diagnosed with mild Apnea. Started CPAP in the last week... Now that I am on CPAP machine I feel tired/fatigued during the day... even though I have never felt this before... is this normal? I read something about sleep debt... but it seems like that might make more sense if I was tired to begin with and the CPAP just didn't make me feel better right away... but rather took a while before I got "caught up".... but seems weird to have never had problems being tired and now very tired in the day.... is this really normal?

BTW is my CPAP machine a good one? I just kinda took whatever they gave me... insurance is paying for it anyway... so figure I want to make sure I got a good one!!

How many hours of sleep were you averaging before you started cpap therapy and did you wake often during those hours?

Now..how many hours are you averaging with cpap and are those hours fragmented with wake ups?

Please add your equipment to your profile like I have mine.
wiki/index.php/Registering_Equipment_in_User_Profile
Hopefully you have a full data machine so that you can use available software to ensure that your therapy isn't in need of improvement.
If your therapy isn't optimal then there's not much chance of ever feeling better.

Gotta start somewhere...make sure the therapy is optimal (use the software) and make sure that hours of sleep and fragmented sleep isn't part of the problem.
If you aren't getting good quality sleep then the best CPAP therapy in the world isn't going to be able to help very much.

I have the same experience. Was a loud snorer/choker (not light, like you), but slept through the night, despite my choking episodes (I never remembered them).

Now, after using my APAP for a week, I've never had such poor sleep. I'm hoping it's just because I'm adjusting to this new lifestyle.

PR REMstar Auto A-Flex with Sys One Headed Humidifier with heated hose with AirFit F10 full face mask
I added this to my profile However for whatever reason in my sig it does not show my machine.., just mask and humid. so I just added the whole list as custom text too...

I don't recall waking a lot before CPAP... I woke 1 or two times for bathroom... that was ussually it. Though sleep study showed micro arousals and 8 breathing events per hour (63 supposedly per hour in REM)....

Had humidifier problems at the start of CPAP and woke up like 20 times first two nights... that seems to be OK now... I think I am sleeping OK. I have always slept 7-9 hours a night... try to get 8+ most nights.

I can even post a temp link to my full sleep study results both before CPAP and when they fitted me for CPAP. My setting just just 7 for the pressure.

Be prepared to work at it for a month or more.

Be committed to knowing how to use your equipment and read your results.

Stay on this group and ask questions.

You will get better and CPAP will make a huge difference to your health. Give it time and energy - it's worth it!

englandsf wrote: Be committed to knowing how to use your equipment and read your results.

I have the phillips dream mapper software... pic here of a days worth of data... what am I looking at/for?
http://screencast.com/t/yyieuLptBIN

englandsf wrote: You will get better and CPAP will make a huge difference to your health.

That's what makes this hard... my health wasn't that bad to begin with... I wasn't tired or fatigued... I perhaps had 130/90 BP and might be getting closer to 120/80... too soon to tell if the CPAP is what's caused the lower readings... but either way I was not exactly hypertensive to begin with...

It's going to be hard to stick with feeling worse, when I felt fine to begin with! :-/

(Thanks BTW for your response! I don't want to sound unappreciative)

The link to that machine is broken...bug in the software.
You probably have the PR S1 model 560.

Sounds like your OSA is worse in REM sleep....that's quite common...I have the same thing myself.
Use the software to make sure that you aren't still having a lot of events during REM.
When OSA is especially worse in REM it is possible to have a decent AHI but still have a truckload of events in REM but the overall average can be low due to the not much happening at other times of the night.

Talk to your doctor about feeling worse if you can't come up with a logical reason (poor quality sleep, sub optimal therapy, general comfort issues, etc) to work on for feeling worse.

While we don't expect to feel better immediately we sure don't expect to actually feel worse.

Use the detailed software instead of Sleep Mapper which can't tell you when stuff is happening.

https://sleep.tnet.com/equipment

https://sleep.tnet.com/reference/tips/imgur

viewtopic/t103468/Need-help-with-screen-shots.html

Pugsy wrote:Use the detailed software instead of Sleep Mapper which can't tell you when stuff is happening.

https://sleep.tnet.com/equipment

https://sleep.tnet.com/reference/tips/imgur

viewtopic/t103468/Need-help-with-screen-shots.html

Thanks - so you are saying i should download sleepyhead? Is that what you would recommend for software?

I like SleepyHead myself but you can use Encore if you wish.
Sleepyhead is easier and faster and yields the same results (whatever your machine gathers) but visually differently than Encore. Same data though...the graphs appearance are different is all.
If you us a Mac...you will have to use SleepyHead as Encore is Windows only (unless you put Windows on the Mac).

Wow - a lot to take in! so I installed sleepyhead... figured I would try to get encore to so I can take a look. But sounds like sleepyhead is sort of the gold standard and has been community support where as encore is for Doc's. (BTW the only thing I found was for EncoreBasic... is there a non-basic I can get?)

1. Anyway - installed sleepyhead... but last night was a bit wierd... I slept a couple hours and then stupidly drank a bunch of water a laid on my right side causind a GERD episode... wound up awake for 2 hours before falling back to sleep... so not sure last night is representative.

2. I happen to have a CMS50D+ so I can monitor pulseox... though that one has no timer... sounds like times drift anyway so it's best to just start CPAP and Pulsox and same time and then no-need for internal clock on pulseox. Sound reasonable... or is it worth buying one of the more fancy models?

3. I saw something about how if I hook up the 50D to PC it can give me additional data... I forget the word... (for forgot where I saw this mentioned) I think it meant hearth rythym data... do you think it's worth trying to do the live hook up to PC for this data?

4. I assume sleepyhead keeps track of what it's already imported... where does it save stuff? Like if I want to make sure it's backed up?

5. Using the 50D do I basically have to import from SD Card and 50D each morning into sleepyhead?

6. What from sleepyhead should I post here? (Again last night was wierd... so not sure representative).

7. Does my CPAP setup seem to be good? I didn't really get any choice... and I am always big on getting the best thing... want to make sure I didn't get a subpar CPAP given to me!

Thanks for all the help and input!

There's Encore Pro but the only difference between Encore Pro and Encore Basic is that Pro uses the troublesome SQL server database thing and Basic doesn't. The reports from both programs are exactly the same...so despite the "basic" part of the name the reports don't suffer.
Pro comes with a lot of headaches and isn't easy to manage...Basic gives you the exact same reports as Pro without the headaches. Trust me...once Basic came out I quit offering support for Pro because it just wasn't needed and was causing me a lot of work with Pro headaches.

Yes...just start your pulse ox and machine at the same time...that will work.
I wouldn't spend the money for the other model unless I was going to do the pulse ox thing every night or often.

SleepyHead stores stuff in an app in MyDocuments...go look...everything is in there.. profile, data, backup, etc.

Here in this thread is an example of the basic data we usually look at.
viewtopic/t103468/Need-help-with-screen-shots.html
We don't need all those graphs...just the Events, Flow rate, Pressure and leak.
And on the left side ...hide the clock and the pie chart first...then take the screen shot so we see AHI and statistics.

Is your machine a 550 or 560 (model numbers on the bottom of the blower)?
The 560 is the newer of the 2 models and has the heated hose option where the 550 doesn't.
It's a great machine.

Thanks! I will look into posting some info shortly.

1. Overall though you don't see a major reason to use Encore over SleepyHead?

2. It seems I download "testing" version of sleepyhead... that seemed to be the only thing? I guess maybe cause version is <1 it's still beta so EVERYTHING is "testing"?

3. So sounds like you don't think much advantage in going the whole live tracking on pulseox to get the plethsomogram info? (Which seems odd... sleepy head says if I want to sync up CPAP and pulseox data I have to import CPAP first... but if I have to hook up pulseox to PC at night for the extra data then that means that data is going to have to come in before CPAP)

4. I see REF 560 PBT on the bottom. I do have the SysOne Heated Humid WITH Heated Hose. Glad to hear I got a quality machine atleast! Thanks!

Sorry so many questions... just trying to get started... I appriciate all the help!

Also trying to figure out what I should call My machine?

The manual says "PR REMstar Auto A-Flex"

On the DreamMapper site on "Settings" it shows my device serial and says the model is "REMstar Auto (System One 60 Series)"... On the control panel of this board I see 10 options that include "REMstar Auto (System One 60 Series)" in the name with various suffixes... none of which mentions A-flex... then I see another item on the list that is called "PR System One REMstar Auto CPAP Machine with A-Flex"... which is a little closer to what it says on my manual...



Any idea what I have?

I actually have all the various software programs available.
SleepyHead is my main go to program though. It's faster and I am not known for my patience factor.
I have been through many "testing" versions and I keep the name brand software available just in case I lose something in SleepyHead with a version change.
I also keep the name brand software available in case I need to help someone with it or if I want to verify something weird showing up in SleepyHead.
Encore does offer a different way of viewing the flow rate in it's wave form which I think is easier to evaluate but it isn't something that often needs evaluation.

EncoreGuide link this will show you examples of what you will see. For a different machine than yours but the basics are the same.
http://www.healthcare.philips.com/pwc_h ... _Guide.pdf

3. So sounds like you don't think much advantage in going the whole live tracking on pulseox to get the plethsomogram info? (Which seems odd... sleepy head says if I want to sync up CPAP and pulseox data I have to import CPAP first... but if I have to hook up pulseox to PC at night for the extra data then that means that data is going to have to come in before CPAP)

I can't really comment because I don't know what you are wanting to accomplish. I don't even own a pulse ox now so that tells you how unimportant that data is for me...but that's me.
I had one...I used it 2 nights and my oxygen levels never dropped...no need for me to use it again so I sold it. I didn't even bother syncing with SleepyHead and that was before SH could import directly.
I am zero help when it comes to pulse ox stuff beyond the basics.

But remember...I have been on cpap for over 6 years now and I don't even look at my data regularly anymore unless I am experimenting. It's boring now.
It wasn't boring when I first started...so how detailed you want to go with all this stuff is up to you and whatever puts your mind at ease.

For help with the pulse ox question...best to wait for someone that knows and uses one more than me.


Oh...you have a PR System One 60 Series Auto CPAP but I think that link is broken so if you choose it nothing shows up for machine.
For humidifier...you might want to choose the correct one...PR System One 60 Series Heated tube humidifier with heated tube...will avoid confusion later.

For the machine...just type in PR S1 model 560 Auto CPAP...in the comments section and we all will know what it is.