Introduction after my first night on CPAP

After knowing for years but ignoring my "apnea" I finally decided to ask my doctor for a sleep test a few weeks back. I emailed my Kaiser doc on April 4 asking for a referral to the sleep clinic. She replied promptly with a link to schedule my introduction class. I made an appt for April 5 and showed up with 3 other people who were also snoring excessively or having trouble sleeping even with sleeping pills. I took home my watch and did the overnight test and returned the machine in the drop box on April 6. My telephone consult was a week later but my profile diagnosed the sleep apnea before my appt. It turned out I had severe apnea with an AHI of 74.1 from 6.5 hours sleep.

Fast forward to yesterday when I took home the Kaiser loaner ResMed AirSense 10 (without humidity) and a nasal mask. As with others the machine was set wide open at 4-20.

I set the machine up at home and turned it on around 11 when I went to bed and slept most of the night until 555AM this morning. I woke up feeling rested (for the first time in YEARS) and could read my phone without squinting or using one eye right away. I pulled the SD card and brought it to work where I just downloaded SleepyHead and pulled the data. I got 6h43m sleep with an AHI of 0.89!!!!! My pressure ranged from 4-8.2 with my 90% at 6.6

I had a few issues with the mask leaking last night but overall it was a smooth night. I'm looking forward to getting a few more good nights sleep and a humidity equipped machine because my nose is still VERY dry this morning. Thanks to this group for all the info.

Welcome to the forum.

While you are using the loaner machine without humidity go get yourself something like Simply Saline and use it frequently during the day and load up on it right before bedtime. It might help somewhat with the dryness in the nasal mucosa you are experiencing.
If they do like they have done in the past you have a week with the loaner and your forever machine will have a humidifier.
Try to make the best of things for now by adding moisture when you can to your nose.

A warm welcome!

Those are very good numbers indeed!
Mine are not that low after being on CPAP for over a year.

Is this the first person we've ever heard from that got good results with the factory defaults? And here, I thought they worked for nobody

I guess, in all fairness, if there were more people that were great at those settings, they probably wouldn't find us looking for help.

A little update...
After a week on therapy with the loaner, I returned to have the clinic tell me what I already knew. I was sleeping well (~7 hours a night), pressures ranged from 5-12 and my AHI was 0.8. Then they told me I had no DME for CPAP and handed me a sheet of paper with phone numbers and said "you can call Apria but you'll find a better deal" and started taking away my loaner. I was appalled that they would expect me to go back to no machine until I figured out where to get the best deal on an $800 machine and order it from the internet. After a little bit of a fit on my part they agreed to extend my loaner for another week while I sourced a machine.

Fast forward to yesterday when my ResMed Airsense S10 Autoset with humidity and heated hose showed up programmed to 5-12 per the prescription. I filled my humidifier, set my comfort settings to AUTO, set the warm up while I did my nightly routine, then I fit my nasal mask, hooked up my hose and hit start. I was blasted in the nose with hot, humid air and could hardly exhale. I tried to just get over it for a few minutes but couldn't. I hit clinical setup and I turned the heated hose to 71 (from 81 after switching to manual) and humidity to 2. The air was almost immediately cooler. I could still barely exhale. I unmasked, turned the Kaiser unit on and found that EPR was set to 3 on the loaner and off on my new personal machine. I matched the settings and tried again. It still felt different but I was able to fall asleep.

Apparently at 245 AM I pulled my mask off and shut the machine down (never did that before). I woke up at 5 and realized I had my mask off and decided to try again. I 'slept' til my alarm at 620 and woke up felling like crap. My AHI for the 1145-245 sleep was 0.8 but I had 30 events from 5-615 and probably my initial AHI of 74 for the few hours I had no mask on. I did wake up without the nasal irritation I've had for the past few weeks (had been blaming allergies) so humidity likely helped. Sleepyhead tells me my leaks were bad during the last hour.

I ordered a Dreamwear Nasal Pillow mask that arrives today. I'm nervous to try it, but also hoping it fits better with fewer leaks than my current nasal mask.

Hoping for a better night tonight.

If you take the comfort settings off Auto you can adjust the humidity & temperature of the hose separately, for comfort. That is what I did.
The main purpose if the heated hose is to reduce condensation "rainout" problems. The heat can be turned off.

prodigyplace wrote: ↑

Tue May 08, 2018 11:26 am

If you take the comfort settings off Auto you can adjust the humidity & temperature of the hose separately, for comfort. That is what I did.
The main purpose if the heated hose is to reduce condensation "rainout" problems. The heat can be turned off.

If you turn the hose heat down, you might want to consider making sure that the machine is at a lower elevation than your head.

Another NorCal Kaiser person here.

My experience (with Kaiser Santa Rosa clinic at least) is that if you don't like your mask you can go in for a "fitting" and they will give you other samples to try/keep. So I always do that first before buying because I no longer have DME coverage either. I bought my last mask and supplies off of Amazon--no hassle, no prescription required. Prices were decent.

Even though it costs a lot out of pocket, be thankful you don't have to deal with Crapria--they really suck.

I’ve got Kaiser in Sacramento. My plan includes DME coverage and Apria is my DME. They’ve been fantastic. The sleep clinic nurse let me come in about 10 days ago to try a nasal pillow mask. I liked it and she ordered me one. Told me it would take about 2 weeks for Apria to send it to me. I got it 4 days later.

I’ve been having some nostril soreness and upon Pugsy’s suggestion, I bought some Lansinoh. That stuff is awesome! It helped a lot.


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Did you change the mask type on your machine to pillows?

thanks for the information. I tried the Dreamwear Nasal mask.
I turned the heat off and humidity to 1. I've been sleeping great until this cold that my kids have had finally hit me.
I slept horrible last night. I used nasal spray to clear my sinuses before bed and took some sudafed and advil but I felt like I was not getting enough air to breathe early on and needed to take some deep mouth breathes before I could put the pillows on.

My girlfriend says the Dreamwear is a little louder than my nose mask, but likes that we can cuddle a little closer with the dreamwear. One thing I don't like about the dreamwear is the "air vent" at the connection 90 makes noise when I sink too far into the pillow. When I cover it with my finger I don't notice any change. Have any of you applied tape to that "vent"

NO, PLEASE do not block the vent!
It is necessary to allow the "bad air" (CO2) out,
so you do not suffocate.
The vent air is a nuisance, but totally needed.

chunkyfrog wrote: ↑

Tue May 15, 2018 11:14 am

NO, PLEASE do not block the vent!
It is necessary to allow the "bad air" (CO2) out,
so you do not suffocate.
The vent air is a nuisance, but totally needed.

This ^

OMFG do not block the vents... you will KILL yourself if so!! Shakes head***