Back on BiPap after nose surgery

Hi all,

Last night I got back on my machine. I wish I could say it was a great night's sleep, but it wasn't. I am still on my old settings of 17/22. It still takes me a few breaths of air after those initial blasts before I can breathe with the durn thing. Last night I only slept 5 hours. I had 31 clear airway events, 10 hypopnea events, 12 obstructive apnea events, 80 pressure pulse events, 1 RERA, 8 unknown OBs, and 1 snore. my AHI was 10.26 and leaks went from 56 to 170. I'm still not sure what all the numbers mean.

I looked back at my early data when I was on a pressure of 15/20 and things really weren't much different. I can see that my numbers for things bounce all over the place.

With pressures of 17/22, Jan 20 to Jan 29 I pretty much had an AHI ranging from 7.26 to 13.489, but Jan 30, the night before my surgery, my AHI was 22.49 with 5 1/4 hours of sleep.

I am thinking of reducing my lower number but not sure if I can because in reading the booklet it seems I can't have a difference of more than 3 or 5 between high and low numbers. Of course, I haven't opened up that part of the machine to see what my options are. Right now I expect that my mask is leaking a lot because I can't put it on as tight due to my nose hurting from surgery. I have to wear it so tight that I have a hurting nose the next day and I don't need my nose hurting more than it does right now. I've had two nights fighting my mask and am thinking of trying my other FF mask. I do need to get liners to help stop the leaks - that's for certain.

I'm not sure that I understand what Pressure Pulse is. Looking back over my numbers I see that I tend to have more high(in the 100s) Pressure Pulses than low.
And my clear airway events hang in the high teens to the 30s.

I can't have another sleep study for 2-3 months because of the surgery. I don't know if the surgery will help me get my numbers down or not, but I do know that I breathe better during the day.

My biggest complaint is that it appears none of the masks so far really work for me. I've tried 2 FF and 2 nasals. The FF works best since I am a mouth breather. I am hoping that since the surgery I can stop being a mouth breather. I am going to try to retrain myself. I am going to send away for a liner and see how that goes. I started out on this journey determined to make it work, and today I know that I MUST make it work even if I'm not sure how to do that.

I figure I'll just do my best with what I have for this week and see what a weeks worth of info shows me. But today after using it last night, I have a headache and neck ache more painful than what I had after my surgery. LOL No one ever said life would be easy, right?

If you have an old tee shirt you don't need, you can make your own liner to use tonight. A few of the forum members give directions on how to construct it.... to quote BlackSpinner:

Emergency Mask liner:
find on old well washed t-shirt or cotton under wear. Lay mask on top. Draw a line an inch out side of mask. Cut it out (it looks like a large triangle) With point at top fold sideways in half. Cut a small triangle in the middle. Lay on mask, bend over and try it on. Adjust little triangle until nose and mouth fit comfortably. Make a template out of paper for future use.

macewa wrote: I am thinking of reducing my lower number but not sure if I can because in reading the booklet it seems I can't have a difference of more than 3 or 5 between high and low numbers. Of course, I haven't opened up that part of the machine to see what my options are

You can have up to 8 cm pressure support (difference between high and low numbers).

When in auto mode...what you see while awake is the default 2 cm pressure support when you inhale and exhale but after you go to sleep the inhale IPAP number will go up in response to apnea events and depending on event needs...it will drag your EPAP or exhale pressure along with it. PR S1 machines..auto mode...that pressure support can vary depending on your event needs and your settings, so it can vary up to whatever your pressure support setting happens to be.

If you prefer a fixed pressure support or range...you might try straight bilevel mode.

Generally we look at EPAP for obstructive events and IPAP for hyponeas.

Being so soon after your surgery I wouldn't dwell so much on AHI numbers right now as I would just try to find something that you can sleep with and then worry about which pressure is optimal a bit later.

Pressure pulses are just little puffs of air to help the machine decide which event category is needed.
Don't worry about the number of those little puffs of air.

Also don't worry about the AHI until you can get the leaks under control. With leaks over 80 to 90 L/Min we don't know if the events are occurring because the pressure is based too low or if the leak is so much that the event is not well controlled because of leak. Leaks need to be well controlled before you can realistically evaluate pressure needs.

Thanks you two! I'll look for an old T=shirt and get started with my own liner. The price sure is right.

They ought to have let you try a fitlife total face mask.
All the contact is around your face.

I will ask about the FitLife Total Face Mask. The folks I deal with have been wonderful and know the struggle I've had because of my pressures. Since September they have given me 4 different masks to use. They were the ones that worked with me so that I would get to keep my BiPap after my first doctor left me hanging.

wHAT is it with these confirmation codes? Sometimes I have to do 3 or 4 of them before my message is accepted?:

Guest wrote:wHAT is it with these confirmation codes? Sometimes I have to do 3 or 4 of them before my message is accepted?:

I think you forgot to log in. Either that or the cookie to stay logged in didn't stick. You are showing up as guest now and not signed in. Confirmation codes are to insure that you are a human and not a bot posting spam.

Next time you sign in...tell it to remember and keep you logged in and when you leave and come back...no need to log in again.