Comparisson: Night 1 vs. Night 18

This is a post mainly for people very new to xpap therapy, or those who haven't started yet and are concerned about it.

Here is a graph of night 1. The yellow highlights are where the machine was in "ramp" mode. There are three sections. Section 1 was actually an attempt at a one hour nap. Sections 2 and 3 are at night. As you can see, I got up and turned off the machine at one point, then turned it back on.

The main thing to notice is the crazy leak line, my pressure going up and down, and all of the events I was having.



Here is last night, night #18:



The moral of the story, it gets easier if you work with it. I've been very proactive and positive in attitude about making my therapy work and I think the charts show what can happen if you stick with it.

Aside from the numbers, I feel more focused, I feel like I can analyze things again! And I hammered the mountain bike trail like I've never hammered it in the last two season. Things are getting better for me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I'm on night 2, and this is very encouraging!!

if you can, try it without the ramp, sometimes the ramp is more trouble than its worth

Curious.. What do you attribute this result to (which BTW is excellent)? Was it simply getting the leaks under control? Was is also maybe just getting more comfortable with the whole mask thing and sleeping better with less disruptions? There didn't appear (sorry don't have my glasses on) to be any significant pressure change, only a nice flat leak line and nice flat pressure line since it didn't have to try to chase leaks. I envy you for those flat leak lines. I get them but they are oh so rare since I toss and turn a lot.

Good job..

Brenda

Well, I think mainly what was going on was just getting used to sleeping with something strapped to my face. I then started taping my mouth and tried a few nights without taping. Night 18 was without taping. Another thing that I think helps me is being sure to sleep on my side. I know that I was much worse off in my sleep study on my back than I was on my side.

Last night's graph is a little worse than Night 18. Not by much, but I did have more leaking. In fact, my lips would part just enough to start making a buzzing sound. I would wake up wondering what on earth that noise was, and then realize it was me. I'm hoping to "train" myself to keep my mouth closed, but we'll see about that... I'm waiting to get a full face mask to see how that goes too.

I attribute comfort with the mask to what I've learned on this forum. The primary things that have helped have been routing the hose up over the headboard of the bed, and covering the hose with a snuggie. I'm not experiencing rainout (yet), but even without rainout worry, the snuggie does a great job of making the hose less noisy as it moves around on the headboard.

Oh, and since we are in the middle of allergy season, I've been using Nasonex, claritin, and sinus irrigation with good success. The main thing that has to happen is that I have to be able to breath out of at least one nostril before going to bed. So far, so good.

My schedule for dealing with my seasonal allergies (mid August through September) is this:

About 1 hour before bed:
2 Claratin
Sinus rinse with a neti pot
2 sprays in each nostril with Nasonex
1 drop in each eye with Optivar

In the morning when I wake up:
1 Claritin
1 drop in each eye with Optivar
Sinus rinse with neti pot (if I'm mountain biking that morning, I wait to rinse after I get back)