Second visit, sleep is bad lately

[Finnian]

Hey there. Sleep test 5 years ago showed 70+ events/hour. CPAP helped a bit, but not much. Got nasal obstruction surgery, didn't help much. A year ago you guys helped me fiddle with my pressure and it seemed to help a little.

There are rare times when my anxiety is resolved and I sleep like a baby and have a lot of energy/motivation. I'm currently undergoing some real stressful events, and my sleep has gone terrible. I think a lot of my issues are mental, but also my AHIs are climbing.

Pic 08162021 is from normal sleep. Pic 08182021 is after someone suggested I set it to a stable pressure to stop arousals, and I did seem to sleep through the night instead of waking up at 6AM randomly. Think I feel a little better, will need to give it a few more days to verify, but thought it'd be a good comparison.

I'd really appreciate some suggestions of stuff to try. Got a new job on the 30th and would love to not be braindead all the time.

Resmed Airsense 10 Autoset
Philips Respironics DreamWear
Pillows

Seattle WA

[Julie]

Hi - if you'd have posted in your old thread, I wouldn't have to guess at why your max pressure's so low...

[Pugsy]

Max pressure isn't really all that low in auto mode...it's 15 (11 minimum) and the pressure doesn't seem to go to 13 as the max the machine went to was 12.8. So 15 max is really a moot point if the machine never goes there.

Now fixed pressure mode the pressure is set to 13 cm...a reasonable setting for fixed mode and the past reports the machine got close to 13.

In terms of evaluating the graphs....too tiny...too many...makes it hard to really evaluate anything.
Please use the format shown here.
viewtopic/t158560/How-to-post-images-for-review.html

I'm currently undergoing some real stressful events, and my sleep has gone terrible. I think a lot of my issues are mental, but also my AHIs are climbing.

Stress or any other physical or mental issue can and will mess with our sleep and it messes with how we feel and it can also cause the AHI to increase as well. An AHI of 2 ish...is far from high enough to worry about and approx 1/2 of that AHI is CA/central apnea events...we can't fix those with more pressure. They are likely a symptom in part to just poor sleep quality.

Now if your AHI was 4 to 6 and primarily OAs or hyponeas then we could suspect that maybe something has changed in terms of what is going on with your airway and needing more pressure.

My suggestion...look to relieve whatever is causing your stress and try to reduce the stress.
I don't see any urgent need for pressure tweaking in either fixed or auto adjusting mode. It won't help any central apneas for one thing and the remaining Obstructive stuff just isn't all that alarming in numbers.
If you remove the CA/central component...you AHI isn't all that bad at all and in fact is quite decent.

You are probably waking a lot on the "bad" nights and that always increases the chance of a few false positive event flags anyway. You have to be awake for anything flagged to matter.

[Julie]

Ohhh I read it as 8 = need new glasses!

[Finnian]

Okay, thanks. Always hope for a magic bullet to fix stuff, but it makes sense. I appreciate the check. I'll post tonight's logs per your link and see if it shows more. I appreciate it.

[zonker]

Ohhh I read it as 8 = need new glasses!

something that might help on reading these tiny graphs: right click on the graph and then open the image in a new window. there you can enlarge to your hearts content.

[JLROhio]

Ohhh I read it as 8 = need new glasses!

something that might help on reading these tiny graphs: right click on the graph and then open the image in a new window. there you can enlarge to your hearts content.

Exactly...

Here's an example in Google Chrome (I'm sure it's similar in other web browsers).

Just right click on the graph, and then left click, "Open Image in New Tab"...then click again in the new tab to make it even larger as it zooms in!

--- -- --- --

[Pugsy]

While I can enlarge the overall image which helps to a point....that doesn't fix the vertical height of the scale on the graph problem well enough for me. The graphs themselves aren't tall enough...too scrunched/short.

[JLROhio]

While I can enlarge the overall image which helps to a point....that doesn't fix the vertical height of the scale on the graph problem well enough for me. The graphs themselves aren't tall enough...too scrunched/short.

Question...

I don't know if y'ally know the developers of the software...but I'm wondering if anyone has ever asked them to change the default view to the graphs are that most appropriate and needed. It seems that re-sizing of the most important parts is an often requested thing.

Anyways, just thinking out loud!

[Pugsy]

While I can enlarge the overall image which helps to a point....that doesn't fix the vertical height of the scale on the graph problem well enough for me. The graphs themselves aren't tall enough...too scrunched/short.

Question...

I don't know if y'ally know the developers of the software...but I'm wondering if anyone has ever asked them to change the default view to the graphs are that most appropriate and needed. It seems that re-sizing of the most important parts is an often requested thing.

Anyways, just thinking out loud!

Actually I think that was done with the last updated OSCAR.
I would need to try a new profile experiment to verify though.
When we see a gazillion graphs and they are so short we can't really evaluate...that's a deviation from the standard view and up in the menu top left of OSCAR...View...there is an option to reset the graphs to standard or advanced.
I have never played much with it but tomorrow I will see what the default for graphs is and what happens when I change it using that option. I need to do another download and new profile though to see what the default really is.

[Finnian]

Yeah, I had ended up posting to a discord for these issues and they wanted to see a ton of the graphs at once, so they were very scrunched in. Will reset it and I think it'll be better.

[Finnian]

Stress or any other physical or mental issue can and will mess with our sleep and it messes with how we feel and it can also cause the AHI to increase as well. An AHI of 2 ish...is far from high enough to worry about and approx 1/2 of that AHI is CA/central apnea events...we can't fix those with more pressure. They are likely a symptom in part to just poor sleep quality.

Interesting. So there have been 3 times when I've had perfect sleep. Once I tried out some psychedelics which really put me in touch with the traumas I had when I was a teenager around nighttime and bedtime. It felt like I resolved a lot of it, and my bed became a welcoming safe place, and I slept like a baby for two weeks. Then it slowly went away.

Couple months ago I tried Ketamine Therapy for depression and anxiety, and one of the shots just completely cleared all those. For two weeks I felt amazing, lived a good life, and had energy and motivation.

Recently I caught a layoff, and it was kind of stressful, but at one point I was completely okay with it. I had a plan, I had accepted it, I had enough money to chill out for a bit, work on my skills, and was looking forward to relaxing without a stressful job. And I slept great for 5 days and had energy and brainpower and motivation.

Contrasted to yesterday where I was at max stress, it kept me up a couple hours in bed at night, I woke up at 6AM with a bad dream. And was braindead and horrible all day long.

So I don't know. I'm tempted to think my CPAP is fine and I'm physically dealing with my apnea, but that my mental health issues are 100% to blame for what is happening lately. They are just much harder to deal with vs checking CPAP settings.

I do appreciate the info, and agree. Maybe I'm downplaying how much it affects me, but I'm trying to start up some meditation and stuff to help with it. And hopefully the job stuff resolves soon.

[rick blaine]

Hi Finnian,

If you've tried psychedelics and ketamine, and they have helped – try Havening. It's effective and drug free.

Here's one source:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQcxDIDJDIs

and there are others on YouTube.