Time to reduce EPR? Pressure?

[cp12345678]

I was diagnosed with OSA about a year ago. Before my diagnosis, I took two at-home sleep tests. AHI was in the 5-10 range, but ODI was 15 on one test and 20 on the other. Even after starting CPAP, I felt tired for months. Ultimately, I bought an O2 ring and discovered that, even with CPAP, my oxygen levels were dropping frequently throughout the night. I started raising my min pressure and boom, oxygen situation improved immensely. I'm using an airsense 10 with a pressure range of 7.4 to 20 and EPR of 3. Originally my pressure range was 4 to 20 (EPR has always been 3) and I've been moving up the min over the course of months. Overall, I feel much better. But....

I'm started to see more and centrals in my OSCAR data, and this concerns me because I've never experienced this many centrals before - not on CPAP or during sleep tests. I see that there's a link between high pressure and centrals and also EPR and centrals. Should I consider reducing my EPR? Pressure? I'm concerned that decreasing pressure could cause my ODI to increase, and I feel better after a night with a few centrals than after a night with 100 oxygen drops.

[zonker]

I was diagnosed with OSA about a year ago.

welcome to the zoo!

help us to help you-

viewtopic/t172378/Sticky--Newbies-PLEAS ... STING.html

what the folk here need is to see your oscar graphs. read the above link and give them something solid to go on by posting charts.

good luck!

[ChicagoGranny]

I'm started to see more and centrals in my OSCAR data, and this concerns me because I've never experienced this many centrals before - not on CPAP or during sleep tests.

How much is more? We've had people come here alarmed because the report went from 3 per night to 6 per night. A few centrals per night is normal.

The odds are the centrals you are seeing are not a problem. But we need to see the data to get a better understanding.

Should I consider reducing my EPR? Pressure?

Nothing but wild guesses until we can see your OSCAR detail. Please post it in this thread.

[palerider]

I'm started to see more and centrals in my OSCAR data, and this concerns me because I've never experienced this many centrals before - not on CPAP or during sleep tests. I see that there's a link between high pressure and centrals and also EPR and centrals. Should I consider reducing my EPR? Pressure? I'm concerned that decreasing pressure could cause my ODI to increase, and I feel better after a night with a few centrals than after a night with 100 oxygen drops.

"more and more" doesn't mean anything.

Post some Oscar charts in the style recommended by the wiki article: wiki/index.php/Oscar:organize

There is not necessarily a link between pressure and centrals, or EPR and centrals, just in some people.

Centrals are typically not an issue, until you have boatloads of them, and they're causing your SpO₂ to drop.

[robysue1]

I'm started to see more and centrals in my OSCAR data, and this concerns me because I've never experienced this many centrals before - not on CPAP or during sleep tests. I see that there's a link between high pressure and centrals and also EPR and centrals.

As others have pointed out: If you are talking about a relatively few number of CAs being scored by your machine, that's nothing to worry about. The folks who have problems with pressure-induced centrals see whole clusters of those events happening with an CAI > 5 and the CAI making up at least 50% of the events scored.

My guess is that you are seeing a small number of CAs (maybe 5-10 all night long) and some of those CAs are probably being scored during periods when you are transitioning to/from sleep and the breathing is naturally not as regular as real sleep breathing is. In this case, those CAs are probably not even real events that would be scored on a sleep test.

Should I consider reducing my EPR? Pressure? I'm concerned that decreasing pressure could cause my ODI to increase, and I feel better after a night with a few centrals than after a night with 100 oxygen drops.

You feel better right now with the small number of machine scored CAs than you do with a 100 oxygen drops, and that's not a surprise.

But that fact also answers your questions:

First, you should NOT lower the Pressure settings. Doing so might well mess things up---i.e. trigger more oxygen drops.

Second, whether you choose to lower EPR from 3 (current setting) or not is more of a comfort issue than anything else. If you lower EPR to 2 and leave the pressure settings alone, your pressure on exhalation will effectively be increased by 1 cm. That may (or may not) reduce the number of CAs without increasing the number of O2 drops. But if changing EPR from 3 to 2 causes you more problems with getting to sleep and staying asleep, then there's no point in changing the EPR in the hope of eliminating a few machine scored CAs from occurring.