Newbie - Victory Dance .... AND a question

[MattS]

Hi All ... New here, reading up as much as I can.

Only 1 night in, so I cannot truly claim victory, however ... SLEPT so much better than the past! Is this what a good nights sleep feels the next day?

I am using a Resmed AirSense11 Autoset ... with a Rio II nasal pillow mask.

My question ... I am a little bit of a mouth breather, though clearly my body over ruled that and let me sleep last night ... however, at first I felt like I was suffocating, even though I kept breathing just fine, is this something I just need to wait out and let my boy get used to, or can I adjust some settings (increase the min pressure, turn of the ramp up?)

Thanks for your help!!!!

-Matt

[ChicagoGranny]

can I adjust some settings (increase the min pressure, turn of the ramp up?)

What are your pressure settings? Many times a pressure of min 4.0 is prescribed. Most people get a feeling of suffocation at anything below 7.0.

Youtube has videos explaining how to change settings of your CPAP model. Other than changing the minimum pressure to 7.0 from 4.0, it's best to use OSCAR (or SleepHQ.com) to guide this process.

Kudos for a good attitude and great start!

[Miss Emerita]

Welcome, and congratulations on making such a good start! As ChicagoGranny says, check your minimum pressure and bump it up if it's quite low.

I'm not sure quite how to do this with an AS 11, but you can also give yourself access to daily information on the screen of your machine that will give you more detailed data about e.g. your leak rate and the breakdown of your AHI. Once you're in the clinician's menu, you'll probably see what I mean. Once you have the fuller report, check it to be sure you're getting the "daily" rather than "weekly" or "monthly" data summaries.

[Janknitz]

To add to what Miss Emerita said, if you have a ramp setting on your machine, it starts at a very low pressure (usually 4 cm H20) under the theory that you'll be asleep when it goes up to the usual minimum pressure. But most of us feel like we are suffocating at 4 cm. Also if your machine is set wide open (4-20 cm) you will feel like you are not getting enough air until you have an apnea and the pressure starts to increase. Check your settings and let us know.

[MattS]

My pressure range is 5-20.
Ramp time is auto.
Start pressure is 4
EPR enabled, full time, Level 3

My issue for the feeling of “suffocation” is in the exhale. Is that a min pressure level increase or and EPR adjustment?

Thanks for the help! I am so happy to learn and just feel better.

-Matt

[Pugsy]

Is that a min pressure level increase or and EPR adjustment?

It's a minimum pressure adjustment upwards when someone is using a 4 or 5 starting pressure.
EPR can't help much until the pressure is high enough for the EPR to drop the pressure during exhale and the machine can't go lower than 4 cm anyway.

Example...if using a starting pressure of 4 you won't feel any EPR exhale drop because there's no where for the pressure to drop to when using 4 cm.
If using a 5 cm starting pressure the machine can only drop to 4 cm if EPR is enabled.
If someone wants to use EPR setting of 3 the drop can't be felt until the pressure is actually 7 cm....and then it drops from 7 to 4 if using EPR at 3.

[MattS]

Thank you. Upped the min to 7. Will give it a go!!

[MattS]

Just a quick update ... increasing min pressure did help quite a bit, not all the way there, but much better. Thank you@!@!

Will just leave it at 7 for now and let me, my body and brain figure it out for a little bit.

Now if I can figure out how to get all of my data out to the CPAP machine, just inserting, waiting and removing the SD card so far has only yielded basic data.

Hmm.

-Matt

[ChicagoGranny]

Now if I can figure out how to get all of my data out to the CPAP machine, just inserting, waiting and removing the SD card so far has only yielded basic data.

That sounds like you do not have the card inserted into the machine while you are using the machine. You have to do that. The detailed data is not recorded in the machine. It's recorded on the card throughout the night. If you only insert the card the next morning, it will only pick up the summary data that the machine has recorded.

[MattS]

Yes, that is exactly the problem !!!!@

Thank you sooo much, just saved me time digging around to figure out.

You guys are so awesome.

-Matt

[MattS]

Thanks for everyone's help. Here is some data from last night, things still going well, not as great as the first night, but still feeling pretty good!

Any changes to pressure recommended (I know this is a small sample of 1 night and happy to get more nights under my belt if useful??)

After this night of data:
Feel: rested, still good
Mask Feel: A little uncomfortable, small adjustment helped, no leaks noticed
Mouth Breathing: Felt worse than previous nights, woke myself up a few times early in the morning, mostly when on my back

[ChicagoGranny]

Any ideas about that depression in the SPO2 line toward the middle of the night?

As far as the mask issues, you can find videos about fitting and adjusting your model on youtube. Some of the videos have some great tips to improve comfort.

[Respirator99]

Any ideas about that depression in the SPO2 line toward the middle of the night?

As far as the mask issues, you can find videos about fitting and adjusting your model on youtube. Some of the videos have some great tips to improve comfort.

Something strange is happening between 23:10 and midnight. It would be useful to get a zoom in to that period.

[MattS]

Not sure about the SPO2 depression, this was my first night capturing that data as well and I was a little surprised. I feel good this morning, so not sure if it is a data anomaly or something else, unfortunately my apple watch did not capture the SPO2 at the area of time.

Here is the zoom in at 23:10


Thanks again!!!

-Matt

[MattS]

Oh, one thing I just realized, the data from my AS 11 is shifted 1 hour (I will try to fix that when I get home) ... move all that data one hour to the right, or shift the SPO2 data 1 hour to the left when comparing those two sets of data.

-Matt