titration level-how high can you go?

I have used a nose hose for about 5 weeks. I am doing my own fine tuning titration I wanted to flatten the flow limitations and reduce ahi to 0. How high can you go with machine settings without having a negative result? Suggestions for reading and understanding all the graphs from sleepyhead reports. (I have a mac and the way I understand it is; resmeds sd card only works on a pc.)

sleepyoga wrote:I have used a nose hose for about 5 weeks. I am doing my own fine tuning titration I wanted to flatten the flow limitations and reduce ahi to 0. How high can you go with machine settings without having a negative result? Suggestions for reading and understanding all the graphs from sleepyhead reports. (I have a mac and the way I understand it is; resmeds sd card only works on a pc.)

That depends on your body, your brain. The pressure you need to keep your airway open versus central apneas, IF your brain reacts to pressure that way, is different for each person. Plus for some people reducing their AHI to zero can be counter productive.

sleepyoga wrote:I have used a nose hose for about 5 weeks. I am doing my own fine tuning titration I wanted to flatten the flow limitations and reduce ahi to 0. How high can you go with machine settings without having a negative result? Suggestions for reading and understanding all the graphs from sleepyhead reports. (I have a mac and the way I understand it is; resmeds sd card only works on a pc.)

I am currently at 12 and notice that when I start to doze off to sleep that I will stop breathing, and then wake myself up really quick. This lasts for about 5-10 minutes or so, so I use the ramp feature.

Also, my macbook with sleepyhead works fine with my ResMed machine.

Expecting a 0.0 ahi all the time is rather pie in the sky. They tell us anything under 5.0 is in the normal range. I have had 0.0 but not consistantly, maybe once a week or so. Some patients can't EVER get below 5, they go by HOW they feel, if you are feeling good and your ahi is as low as you can get it...then you are there. You are going to butt your head against the wall if you think you can consistantly get to 0.
If you are self titrating and want to see how high you can go with your pressure, you may be in trouble. Raise your pressure a point or half a point at a time, wait about a week, see how your ahi's are and if you need to raise again do the same. If you get your pressure too high you will end up getting centrals...and that is not good. A regular auto machine will go to 20, but if your 95% pressure is up that high then you will probably need a bipap or asv machine. Others on the forum can tell you the challenges of constant high pressure needs, my 95% pressure is 11 and I set my machine from 10 to 15 all the time...and I that keeps my ahi's below 5 consistantly.

In addition to the count of apneas, check the severity. Do you stop breathing completely, and for how long? Some apneas are much worse, but count the same for AHI numbers.