sledbet,
The vast majority of the events being scored are scored as CAs. And that's an issue that has to be looked into. Moreover, those CAs are not thickly clustered only at a time that you are likely to be awake or semi-awake.
So it's important to understand what your original sleep study results were and why you were put on the VPAP in the first place. So let's start with questions:
1) Does your original sleep study say anything at all about
central sleep apnea? Does your titration study (if you had one) say anything at all about either
central sleep apnea or
complex sleep apnea? And how many CAs were actually scored on the diagnostic test? And how many CAs were actually scored on the titration test?
2) Did you start out with a CPAP or APAP? If so, what was the medical reason that you were switched from the CPAP/APAP to the S9 VPAP?
3) What are the clinical settings for your S9 VPAP? From the posted data, it appears that you are using either the S9 VPAP S or the S9 VPAP Auto. There's just a tiny hint that the machine is adjusting the pressure levels in response to the Hs and/or the OAs that were scored, but it's really hard to tell. So if you are using the machine in Auto mode, either the Auto range is very narrow (that's not always "bad") or the machine is not finding much to respond to.
sledbet wrote:I am on a Vpap S9 and for the past month it's been feeling like Im suffocating. I found that my Ti settings were set at .1 and .3 after reading I changed to .3 and 2.5
How did the changes in Ti settings affect the "I'm suffocating" feeling? Did it make things BETTER, WORSE, or ABOUT THE SAME?
And what exactly do you mean by "I'm suffocating"? That phrase is often used by new PAPers to describe two very different problems:
- Do you mean that you cannot get a good satisfying inhalation? In other words, the problem is that you feel as though there's not enough air coming into the mask? And in this case, the problem is usually WORSE at the start of the night when the RAMP is at its lowest pressure and the problem tends to get a bit better as the pressure increases.
OR
- Do you mean that you cannot comfortably get a complete exhalation? In other words, the problem is that you feel as though there's too much air coming into the mask and the amount of air is not allowing you to fully exhale before you feel forced to start the next inhalation? And in this case, the problem is usually GETS WORSE during the RAMP period as the pressure increases.
We need to know what "I'm suffocating" means to you because the causes of these two problems are quite different and the "fix" for one of them often makes the other one feel worse.
I downloaded sleepyhead this week and I am seeing that my pressure is jumping up and down. Is this a problem with sleepyhead or a problem with my machine?
The graph you are looking at is the "Mask pressure graph" and it shows exactly how the machine is adjusting the pressure between your EPAP and IPAP settings on each and every breath. That graph is supposed to jump up and down. The regular Pressure graph is further down the list and not shown in your screen shot. The regular Pressure graph won't repeatedly jump up and down; it will have two curves---one for IPAP and one for EPAP.
I really struggle with keepuing my mask on because of the feeling of suffocation. I tend to pull it off about 4hrs in when I hit REM and start having my apneas.
The posted data does not show this. The apneas scored on 7/22 do NOT seem to be REM related (at least not in my opinion). The data scored on 7/14 MIGHT show a wee bit of REM influence, but the OAs on this night are NOT "out of control"----even if they are REM-related, there are not that many of them.
And on the nights you posted, you have over 5 hours and over 7 hours of data. So there's no evidence of "pulling the mask off "about 4hrs in". However, on 7/22 did you pull the mask off at 5:15ish and then go back to sleep maskless for a few more hours?
