New Here - Questions About Pillows and Problems Exhaling

[MDSnyder3]

Hi all, I'm new here. I received my CPAP machine last week and started trying to use it and am having problems. Seems when I go to bed, I am sleepy. After donning the mask, which are pillows, I become wide awake because of the breathing. Inhaling isn't too bad. Exhaling is not fun at all. Exhaling against forced air is difficult. I find myself inhaling deeply to compensate. I cannot adjust the flow of air either. Is there something I can do, or do I just need to get used to it by using it periodically during the day.

[chunkyfrog]

EPR (exhalation pressure relief) can help with that,
but most of us have the same experience at first.
Your muscles will soon adapt, and it will feel normal.

[MDSnyder3]

How do you adjust the EPR?

[Pugsy]

You may have to turn on the access to EPR.
The manual explains how.
https://www.respshop.com/manuals/ResMed ... %20her.pdf

Now bear in mind that EPR only works if the pressure setting is above 4 cm because the machine can't go below 4 cm.
So I don't know what your current settings are but using say 6 cm with EPR of 2...is going to give you 6 inhale and 4 exhale and it may sound weird but that's easier to do than just 4 for inhale and 4 for exhale without EPR.

[MDSnyder3]

I don't think that I can adjust the EPR on mine. I've gone through all the settings and it's nowhere. Maybe it has been blocked or something?

[Pugsy]

You may have to go into the clinical setup menu area and the manual explains how to do that.
It's just a combination of button pushing.

[MDSnyder3]

I was able to go into the Clinical settings mode. Min pressure was set to 6.0. Max pressure was set to 14.0. I was able to change the settings so that both min and max pressures were 6.0. Then I went out of the settings and it looked like it didn't keep my settings. Went back to 6.0 and 14.0. Just realized that min and max pressure were not what you were talking about. I found the EPR settings. I could only set them from 1,2, or 3. Couldn't go to 6.

[Dog Slobber]

Nobody told you to set EPR to 6. We are all aware that EPR is limited to off, 1, 2 or 3.

Pugsy was explaining to you that EPR will never drop below 4, and she gave an example of using a pressure of 6 with EPR of 2.

[MDSnyder3]

Nobody told you to set EPR to 6. We are all aware that EPR is limited to off, 1, 2 or 3.

Pugsy was explaining to you that EPR will never drop below 4, and she gave an example of using a pressure of 6 with EPR of 2.

Guess I misunderstood. My apologies.

[Pugsy]

The only change I wanted you to make to anything was turn EPR on to full time and set it to 2.
Leave everything the same.
We may have a problem though if the supplier wrote the settings through ResScan and they set EPR to be off and the software directions are on the SD card itself. It can be done with ResMed's software.

So if you change EPR to on and set it to 2 and it doesn't hold we may have to erase the SD card to eliminate the SD card settings overriding the manual setting change of turning EPR on and the setting change. The reason I mention this is you say you changed the min and max to 6 but it didn't stick. That tells me the SD card may contain some settings via software that make it more difficult for you to change things. We can fix that though if that is the case. Just erase the SD card and start fresh. The important summary data that the DME might need will just get put back on the SD card when it is put back in the machine. They are probably using MyAir anyway.

[MDSnyder3]

The only change I wanted you to make to anything was turn EPR on to full time and set it to 2.
Leave everything the same.
We may have a problem though if the supplier wrote the settings through ResScan and they set EPR to be off and the software directions are on the SD card itself. It can be done with ResMed's software.

So if you change EPR to on and set it to 2 and it doesn't hold we may have to erase the SD card to eliminate the SD card settings overriding the manual setting change of turning EPR on and the setting change. The reason I mention this is you say you changed the min and max to 6 but it didn't stick. That tells me the SD card may contain some settings via software that make it more difficult for you to change things. We can fix that though if that is the case. Just erase the SD card and start fresh. The important summary data that the DME might need will just get put back on the SD card when it is put back in the machine. They are probably using MyAir anyway.

Understood, thanks.