CPAP struggling. Feeling Discouraged

[Sophie66]

Hi All, I am new on here, hoping anyone can help me with some questions? I have been using my CPAP machine for 6mths for confirmed moderate sleep apnea of 21 events per hour. My sleep specialist recommended I use APAP pressures min 6 max 8. Therapy went well initially, getting used to wearing the full face mask and trying to stop mask leaks etc and with AHI's 1.00 and under but then my AHI'S started increasing to 2, 3 I was unable to get help from my sleep specialist because I bought my machine on line and not from their distributors so they said they could no longer give me advice ! So, I started changing my pressures on my machine myself to try and reduce my AHI's. In retrospect I shouldn't have bothered ! Anyhow, here I am not knowing what I need to do next after changing the setting mode and pressures from APAP to CPAP using different pressures going up and down but keeping the min to 8 and max going up to 10,11, 12 and higher but not using ramp or EPR. All the changes haven't made any difference in my AHI'S, they are just maintaining around 3 or more. I know if they are under 5 per night then there is nothing to worry about. In hindsight I wish I'd never started messing with all the changes as now I don't know what to do next. I also signed up or SleepHQ and Oscar but that has made me feel more paranoid about what's working and what might not be working to make my therapy bearable.
The latest changes I made from advice from posting my reports to them was that my set max pressure is sitting at or near my max pressure the whole night whether it was set at 9, 10 or 11 and my flow rates were all over the place. I don't know anything about flow rates! I was advised to set my pressures to min 7 max 15, no ramp and set EPR to 1 full time. I did this and actually slept for 7 hrs and my AHI dropped to below 1 and pressure fluctuated between 10 and 11. I felt I breathed better on those settings but my concern is I couldn't wake myself up the next morning, it was really alarming. My breathing was shallow but the feeling of it being hard to wake up scared me. Of course I did wake up and forcing myself to do so. The next night I changed my machine setting to CPAP pressure 12 but woke up feeling like there was pressure was too much and couldn't breath properly. My question is - Would there be any danger in changing the settings back to APAP 7-15 with full time EPR just like before and not worrying about the sensation of struggling to wake up?
ast night I changed the settings to APAP, 8 - 10, no EPR or ramp and I woke up in the middle of the night like I couldn't breathe like my chest was being crushed ? Could this be a problem with the set pressures?
If anyone could give me any insight on these questions and concerns I would be grateful for your help. Thanks in advance

[Respirator99]

Hi Sophie. Please read the sticky at the top of this forum - the titled Sticky: Newbies PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING and follow the advice there.

Please let us see a share link from SleepHQ, so we can see the data and perhaps understand what's going on.

And please - don't keep changing your settings every night. That way lies madness!

[Sophie66]

Hi, I read the Sticky for Newbies and hope I have completed my reply correctly. Forgive me, I'm not very computer literate. I don't have the 2 reports on the questions on Oscar but they are on SleepHQ. I will try posting the links here and hope it works?
Here is the link to report July, 13th where I had the machine on APAP pressures 7-11 and EPR on full time. This night I slept really well and felt I could breath normally but found I had a hard time making myself wake up in the morning if that makes sense? I have never had that happen all the time using CPAP. I'm reluctant to try these settings again in case the same thing happens. It scared me.. I'm wondering from looking at the chart for that day if I am worrying needlessly?
https://sleephq.com/public/b75d4f2c-a58 ... ff4bf94897

Next report is July 14th where I had the machine set on CPAP pressure 12 but I woke up feeling like I was being smothered with the air pressure so I changed the mode to APAP pressure 8-11 and turned the EPR off. I didn't sleep well with these settings either CPAP or APAP. I'm wondering what the report might indicate ?
https://sleephq.com/public/8521bc2f-375 ... 815aef9b48

Thank you..

[ozij]

Here is the link to report July, 13th where I had the machine on APAP pressures 7-11 and EPR on full time.

On this night (https://sleephq.com/public/b75d4f2c-a58 ... ff4bf94897) your minimum was set to 7, and your maximum was set to 15

This night I slept really well and felt I could breath normally but found I had a hard time making myself wake up in the morning if that makes sense?

The first part is important and promising, but what do you mean by " I had a hard time making myself wake up in the morning"?

[Sophie66]

It's a little hard to explain how it felt really, but as I was coming out of a sleep from the night before I felt like I couldn't arouse myself from sleep that my breathing felt shallow and I had to force myself awake. It was like I was semi conscious. Normally to wake up would be instantaneous and then go back to sleep if felt needed more sleep. Sorry this sounds bizarre I know but it really made me think could it be the cpap therapy settings slowing down my breathing or something to cause that to happen?