Introduction and thanks

[jpop]

First off, thanks for all the useful information here and the members who spend the time helping others out. It's a great thing you do, and I am very appreciative of the information I've found here.

I have been suffering from Migraines for over 40 years and new to CPAP (~24 AHI, 12-15cmH20). I've had several broken noses in my youth from sports injuries, corrective surgery in the late 80s, and follow up nasal turbinate and valve surgery that was never performed as my professional life got in the way.

Most revealing in the sleep studies was my oxygen saturation dipped to 72%. My guess is this has been the ongoing source of my migraines and a single episode seizure while sleeping.

I developed a pretty elaborate method of avoiding the migraines, by waking myself in the early morning, mostly around 4am. An internal medicine Doctor had suggested many people get an aura before having the migraine, which led to early rising and worked great for my oxygen deprived body. Needless to say, it has all caught up with me, morning high blood pressure, an oft racing heart while I sleep and fatigue that imprisons my motivation.

Thus far CPAP has been a solid improvement. My average AHI is below 3 now for the first two weeks and I continue to feel a bit better day by day. Many tips here have helped me along the way, I'm getting about 7.5 hours of sleep a night and rarely waking up. About the only issue I have is some upper chest soreness from pushing hard to exhale. Haven't really dug into it too hard yet as I'm still attempting to get in a good rhythm and normalize the whole process into my life.

So, thanks again for all the information here and thanks in advance for any and all help in the future.

JP

[Okie bipap]

Welcome to the forum. As you have already seen, there is a lot of great help and information here. It sound like you are off to a good start. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask. As i'm sure you have already seen, you will get all kinds of answers here. Some will be in great detail and others will be rather terse. Once again, welcome aboard.

[jpop]

Thanks much!

Just figured out to turn my flex setting up which helped with the upper chest discomfort I was having from exhaling.

I also regularly use a Navage to keep my sinuses clear and there seems to be an issue with how much time I wait after use before going to sleep. If I don't allow 30+ minutes I have a bunch of events early on in the evening and start getting some minor leaks. Not awful, but I'll need to work through it a bit.

So far so good. Probably need a collection of masks at some point, because I can easily see how having a rotation of 3 or more different types of masks would be beneficial.

Thanks again, and when I have some decent sleepyhead data when I'm no longer making progress, I'll be sure to get it posted.

JP

[nobody]

Why would a rotation of masks be beneficial? Just wondering/curious. I've been using the same mask for years, I think it's really great. I get a lot of migraines too but they don't seem to be connected to any certain time of day.

[LSAT]

I don't understand what rotation would do except to screw up your sleep.

[babydinosnoreless]

I don't understand what rotation would do except to screw up your sleep.

I can see it. I have the N20 and a couple of nights when I had an ouchie on my nose I switched to my dreamwear ffm
till it cleared up. I was wishing for a different nasal mask that didn't sit in the same spot rather than using the ffm which I would still keep for when my nose was stuffy.

I think, I could easily become a mask horder if the dang things weren't so damn expensive.

[jpop]

I don't understand what rotation would do except to screw up your sleep.

My nasal congestion comes and goes, and can switch from nostril to nostril while sleeping. In most instances, my dreamwear full face mask works great. With some congestion, it's more of a challenge and often I need to pull the straps pretty tight leaving some marks on my face and perhaps some redness that lasts through the day. With my nasal valve and turbinate issues, I'm not presenting the same breathing and obstruction issues daily and likewise, I don't believe my mask needs are constant.

[jpop]

I think, I could easily become a mask horder if the dang things weren't so damn expensive.

I already am a mask horder in just a couple weeks in.

[jpop]

Despite getting up a few times, I did think I got a solid night of sleep. I had a couple very minor leaks that were more annoying than causing any great pressure differences.

Got pretty dried out as Philips has replaced their humidity setting with an "Adaptive" Setting. I guess this means you better "Adapt" to being in the Sahara. I'm going to move it to the "On" position although I might be snorkeling this evening.

I'm not sure if the set of incidents between 3:45 and 4:00 were me fiddling with the mask or an actual event of some sort.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice. Gratuitous jokes or other comedy also appreciated.

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[Pugsy]

You can take it out of "adaptive" mode for humidity if you wish and go back to manual.
It's a change probably that would have to be made in the clinical setup menu mode most likely.

[jpop]

Yep, that's what I did, and unfortunately, it didn't turn out very well. Lots of nasal congestion and eventually some panic that caused me to wake up.

[jpop]

New Mask, dreamwear nasal gel pillow that seemed to work really well for me, but shows a lot of leaking which I wasn't aware of. Not sure if they are real leaks or just the mask setting for this particular mask. The previous mask I was using I had all kinds of leaks that would wake me, yet they rarely would show up in a SH Report.

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[Pugsy]

New Mask, dreamwear nasal gel pillow that seemed to work really well for me, but shows a lot of leaking which I wasn't aware of. Not sure if they are real leaks or just the mask setting for this particular mask.

Neither...it's SleepyHead set to the wrong red line leak threshold for your machine.
That's why it is telling you that you are having leaks and you don't see them....see the LL line over on the Events graph? That's Large Leak and your machine isn't flagging any large leaks.

SleepyHead defaults to a ResMed red line threshold leak number of 24 L/min excess leak only.
Respironics have different thresholds and report leak differently.
Respironics never gives us a static red line number to use because it varies all the time with mask and pressure used but for your pressure probably up around 80 L/min is a good conservative number to use.
In SleepyHead go to Preferences/CPAP tab and change the 24 to 80 L/min.

If you were having any large leaks....you would see flags in the LL line of the Events graph.

[jpop]

Thank you so much Pugsy!

More tinkering and trials to come, but I'm pretty stoked about how I feel after sleeping with the Dreamwear nasal gel pillow mask. Perhaps a medium would work better than the large, and if I could Frankenstein my ideal mask together, it would be a Dreamwear Full Face that had gel pillows.

It definitely seems as if the gel pillows lift my nose tip enough that I don't have any congestion or nasal valve issues. Just pushing up on my nose tip an 1/8th of an inch can make a huge difference for me, and thus far the gel pillows look to be promising.

Also Pugsy, once I have things sorted out I'll have a bunch of lightly used masks for you.

Thanks again for your help!

[Pugsy]

if I could Frankenstein my ideal mask together, it would be a Dreamwear Full Face that had gel pillows.

You aren't the first to mention that combination. I am surprised that Respironics hasn't come up with it. I think it would be a great idea myself.