No relief yet

[erbowman]

Well maybe its too soon but I honestly don't feel much different. I have been on cpap for about 10 day. I have used it faithfully every night, all night long. I usually sleep 6 hours then awaken.
At first I must admit, it took some getting accustomed to the air and occasional leaks but now I just fix and go back to sleep. Still in the morning most days I feel like I didnt sleep well. Similar to being "hungover"

I finally got Sleepyhead program downloaded and after looking at some of the results it makes me wonder if my problem is something more. Out of all my episodes, 2/3 of them are Clear airway and 1/3 are obstructive. I did magnify the graph and most do seem like there are at least 10 secs in duration.

Any advice or insight would be appreciated

[nanwilson]

Do post your sleepyhead results here and help will be coming. Remember you have been sleep deprived for a very long time, you will not be able to catch up on that sleep debt in 10 days.
Good luck
Nan

[erbowman]

Do post your sleepyhead results here and help will be coming. Remember you have been sleep deprived for a very long time, you will not be able to catch up on that sleep debt in 10 days.
Good luck
Nan

Is there an easy way to post the results

[BlackSpinner]

Do a screen shot of the graphs, upload them to a place like photobucket then use the "Img" button to post the picture or just paste the link in.

[Cardsfan]

My sleep specialist Dr. told me it takes 6 months for the brain to recover after you start treatment.

[erbowman]

I have never used photobucket so it may take a while

[Pugsy]

I used to use Photobucket but it has got so it is a royal PITA to use.
So I recommend using Imgur....it's easier and faster and what I prefer now. See this link for some helpful hints.
https://sleep.tnet.com/reference/tips/imgur

[erbowman]

http://imgur.com/a/8BAFU

Ok that seems to be easy. This is from 2 different days. One was last night

[Pugsy]

Couple of questions.

Do you have a copy of your sleep study without cpap and if so, does it mention supine or REM AHI and if it did what did it say?

Did you have a sleep study with cpap and machine and if so what was the prescribed pressure OR were you give this machine with the understanding that you would use it for X amount of time and then pressure needs would then be evaluated and/or adjusted?

10 days is really too soon to expect much improvement but I have some thoughts that sort of depend on your answers to the above questions.

Also..just thought of a couple more questions..
How many hours of sleep are you averaging and are those hours of sleep fragmented with wake ups and if they are any idea why?
Do you take any meds of any kind (even OTC) and if you do what are they?

[erbowman]

Couple of questions.

Do you have a copy of your sleep study without cpap and if so, does it mention supine or REM AHI and if it did what did it say?

Did you have a sleep study with cpap and machine and if so what was the prescribed pressure OR were you give this machine with the understanding that you would use it for X amount of time and then pressure needs would then be evaluated and/or adjusted?

10 days is really too soon to expect much improvement but I have some thoughts that sort of depend on your answers to the above questions.

Also..just thought of a couple more questions..
How many hours of sleep are you averaging and are those hours of sleep fragmented with wake ups and if they are any idea why?
Do you take any meds of any kind (even OTC) and if you do what are they?

Supine REM Sleep 0.0%
AHI non supine 5.4 AHI Supine 10.38 O2 sats dropped to 83% but below 88% for 20 minutes total
I only had a sleep study for diagnosis not for titration
I do take some pain meds for degenerative disk disease but only as needed
For years I have got between 5-6 hours of sleep per night. not fragmented. I know thats not really enough but its all I can stand lying down due to back issues. I just wake up after a period of time

[Pugsy]

When is your follow up visit scheduled with whomever is managing your apap results?

What is the median average pressure per the machine? Not the 95 % pressure....the median.

Couple of thoughts...while your AHI is well within acceptable limits your pressure is doing some fairly wide swings and that may be from sleeping on your back (which is common for our OSA to be worse supine or pressure needs to be markedly different) and those swings may or may not be impacting your sleep quality.
Your OSA may be worse in REM which is also fairly common but we don't know because you didn't get much if any REM.
I wasn't asking about supine REM..I was asking about REM in general.

Anyway...I understand about the back pain stuff as it is something I deal with also. Definite rock and a hard place situation there.

Those 5 to 6 hours of sleep that you do get....about how many times do you wake up during them?
When you say you don't notice any improvement...exactly what symptoms are you not seeing any improvement in?

[erbowman]

When is your follow up visit scheduled with whomever is managing your apap results?

What is the median average pressure per the machine? Not the 95 % pressure....the median.

Couple of thoughts...while your AHI is well within acceptable limits your pressure is doing some fairly wide swings and that may be from sleeping on your back (which is common for our OSA to be worse supine or pressure needs to be markedly different) and those swings may or may not be impacting your sleep quality.
Your OSA may be worse in REM which is also fairly common but we don't know because you didn't get much if any REM.
I wasn't asking about supine REM..I was asking about REM in general.

Anyway...I understand about the back pain stuff as it is something I deal with also. Definite rock and a hard place situation there.

Those 5 to 6 hours of sleep that you do get....about how many times do you wake up during them?
When you say you don't notice any improvement...exactly what symptoms are you not seeing any improvement in?

I see doc in about a month
Median pressure according to sleepyhead was 9.22
Stage R was 43.5 minutes 15.6% I guess thats REM
I awaken occasionally if wind blows hard, rain, mask leaks. Maybe 3-4 a night but I generally go right back to sleep
As far as symptoms go, I awaken still tired. I get sleepy during the day and just feel like I have no energy. I had this before I did the cpap and is still the same now. I was hoping that some of that would have got better by now. Only thing that has improved according to my wife is I dont snore anymore so she is happy.

[Pugsy]

You know that we have a saying around here...you can't fix bad sleep with cpap if the bad sleep is caused by something other than sleep apnea.
As much as we want to have cpap fix all our bad sleep and how the bad sleep makes us feel...it isn't that simple.

You aren't getting enough hours of sleep....we all know that so that's a problem the machine can't fix because you can't lay in bed because of the back pain.

You are using a range of pressures and for some people that changing range can also affect sleep quality meaning when the machine changes it can cause arousals that you may nor may not remember and any sleep fragmentation has a direct negative impact on how we feel.
I need close to 8 hours to feel decent...below 6 hours and I pretty much feel like crap no matter how good my AHI is.

10 nights isn't really considered much time in the grand scheme of things to expect to feel better even if you were getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep.

I don't know if changing to a fixed pressure or a much smaller range of pressures would improve your sleep quality or not. It's certainly something to consider trying though.
If your minimum pressure was more close to that median pressure the pressure likely wouldn't be going through such swings and it might help the sleep quality a little.

It's possible that the REM sleep (or if you are ending up on your back) is the cause of the higher pressure needs so then you have to decide if you want to use higher all night just to deal with those times when higher is needed with a fixed pressure or maybe continue to use apap mode but maybe reduce the range considerably.
It might help if you are one of those people who find that changing pressures affect sleep quality.
Not everyone has a problem with changing pressures though...and we don't know if you are one of those or one of the people that can sleep through any change.

Since the apap machine and apap mode is being used instead of a formal in lab titration study then some adjustments could be made to maybe help. I don't know if you want to change things before you see your doctor or wait. It all depends on how comfortable you are with changing things yourself.
I don't advocate changing anything unless a person is comfortable with it and understands what they are doing. On paper your results aren't horrible though so there's not anything on the report that is just screaming "fix me" except for the hours of sleep thing.

[erbowman]

Thanks for your help. I changed my settings some like you mentioned. I certainly can't see how it could hurt.
I know I need more sleep but I don't know how to do that yet. I blame it on my back but who knows. I just wake up and have to get out of bed. Eventually I may need surgery on my back but I don't want to until I have to. I also have cervical problems too. Just falling apart I guess. Lol

I am going to keep using cpap and discuss many things when I talk to doc in a month. Thanks again!

[Tdub210]

It took me 6 weeks to really feel much in the way of an energy increase. Even then I'd say it's noticeable but subtle. Some people here say they get it night 1, others a few months or longer. It seems to vary widely by individual. I think it took me a couple weeks to stop waking up, mostly because of shifting positions and being cognizant of the mask. I sleep all night now. It will come in time.