Stomach issues with cpap

[ElCamello]

I did change the max pressure to 20. Please see graph below.

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[Julie]

Hi - that was a good first step...

However. Unless you also change the minimum setting to more than the machine's default low of 4, not a lot will have improved.

The min. is 'the' one that does the work of chasing events and at 4, it's doing nothing at all and most people cannot breathe at 4.

Bump it to at least 6 tonight (and 7 wouldn't hurt) and I bet tomorrow will look a lot different.

Can't wait to see how it goes!

[ElCamello]

Hi Julie
Actually I changed the minimum setting round 1 am to 6 cmH2O.
you can ignore everything before 1 am because I was wearing the mask but could not fall to sleep.
What I find interesting is that there were events recorded before 1 am even though I was not asleep (At least as long as I remember ).

[Julie]

Everyone thinks they never slept, but you DO, just aren't aware of it!

Push the min. to 7 and leave things for a couple of nights. Try some soft music before bed, no screens or exercise though, and don't be conscious of your breathing if at all possible... think of whatever works for you to distract.

If taking 1-3 mg of melatonin (not 5 or 10) 1/2 hr before bed helps, do it, lots do if they're 'wired' for any reason and worry about being able to drift off.

And then come back...

[Okie bipap]

After changing the minimum pressure to six, your pressure never got much below 8 the rest of the night. I would recommend a minimum pressure of at least 8, or maybe even 9.

[ElCamello]

This is my report from yesterday. I got a better AHI

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[Julie]

Slowly but surely .

[Pugsy]

Did you by chance start waking up around 7:20 or so and sort of lay there and toss and turn a lot until you finally got up?

[ElCamello]

For sure it was not a continuous sleep and I had a lot of tossing, I got up round 5 with a pain in my back, and since than it was a tossing marathon interrupted by some sleep.

[Pugsy]

Next time you find yourself waking up turn off the machine and then turn it back on when you go to bed.
This way there will be a separate sleep session documented that can be turned off and the data removed from the calculations at least briefly for easier/better evaluation of the actual sleep time.

You probably have a lot of sleep/wake/junk flagging going on while awake that is muddying up the sleep time evaluations.
Remember the machine doesn't have any way to know if you are asleep or not. It only measures air flow and our awake breathing is very irregular when compared to asleep breathing and the machine doesn't know that the irregular breathing isn't asleep breathing. It will respond and flag those irregularities like they were real asleep events and if we aren't asleep they simply don't count. Think of them as false positives if you will. Awake stuff doesn't count in cpap apnea evaluations. You have to be asleep.

They are still important in the sense that they reflect prolonged periods of poor sleep quality but don't mean that cpap therapy is necessarily the fix either. More cpap pressure isn't going to fix bad sleep from back pain....been there and done that myself. I wish it would but it just won't.

[ElCamello]

Hi all,
last night was continuous struggle with my mask. I think the strap was too tight on my neck and I had a nightmare round 2:30 somebody bighting me on my neck. The rest of the night was a struggle trying to adjust the mask strap not too tight but also not to get any leaks.
I tried setting the lowest pressure to 8. it was uncomfortable to sleep so I set it down to 7.5
Is there still hope for me to achieve an AHI less than 5 ? I am starting to lose hope.
Please see below my data :

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[Pugsy]

Your AHI is very likely reflecting a lot of sleep/wake/junk false positive flagged events so it can't come down until you are sleeping more soundly.
Being awake and fiddling with the mask often during the night...anything flagged while awake simply doesn't count in terms of OSA therapy except your sleep quality is crap because of mask fit or comfort issues.

If you look at some of the clustering of events...obviously right near a break in therapy where the machine was turned off and back on again...you had to be awake to turn the machine off and back on again.

The clustering of false positives means poor sleep but not necessarily poor OSA therapy. You already know you had mask fit and comfort issues last night. How much of your overall AHI is real vs false positive is really hard to know without and in depth analysis of the flow rate that isn't always easy to do but since we know for sure you remember a lot of mask fit issues it is fairly safe to assume a good chunk of the AHI isn't related to OSA.

You need to work on mask fit and comfort issues now because they are causing sleep problems. Once you can sleep soundly or at least in more solid blocks of sleep you will be able to at that time do a more accurate evaluation of the actual therapy effectiveness.

[ElCamello]

thank you for the reply.
Are there any good full face masks you would recommend. I am not fully happy with the full face mask I have. I have noticed as soon as I cranked the pressure up I have a lot of issues with fitting and leakages.

[Pugsy]

You are asking the wrong person to recommend a full face mask. I have never really used one beyond simply trying one to see what it is like. I am a nasal pillow mask person. I hate anything on my nose so I just won't do it.
For me the full face mask would have to NOT have anything on my nasal bridge area. So bear in mind that's where my thoughts are coming from.

Now I have tried the Respironics DreamWear full face mask and I suppose I could use it if I had to. I can sleep with it.
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/philip ... k-fit-pack

The ResMed F30 is a similar type of mask. I have not personally tried it though.
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/resmed ... k-headgear

I normally tell people to look at what is available and take stock of their own personal wants and needs and simply try a mask that looks interesting to them. It's the only way to know for sure if you can do well with a mask or not. Trial and error.
https://www.cpap.com/plp/full-face-cpap-mask/ZT0yNjU

Where are you located? Do you have insurance that helps you out with the cost or are you self pay?

[Miss Emerita]

ElCamello, you mentioned at the beginning of the thread that you moved to a full-face mask when you realized you were breathing through your mouth. I wonder: did you ever try using a nasal mask or a nasal pillow mask while using measures to keep your mouth closed? If not, would you like to experiment?