Suggestions for lowering my AHI?

rested gal · Post by **rested gal** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:29 pm

Looking at the Sleep Therapy Daily Details chart (the only one I ever look at in Encore Pro, and I don't use any of the supplemental programs) my guess is that both ends need to be raised if you're going to use it in auto mode.

My guess is:

A straight cpap pressure of 10 or 11 would do fine.

or

An autopap range set at 9 for the minimum and anything from 15 to 20 as the maximum would do fine. I'm betting it would likely never hit anywhere close to 15, so it wouldn't matter whether the max is set for 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 or 20. What matters, imho, is that you give it enough room above that it never hits it.

What will matter just as much, imho, is that the minimum pressure be set high enough to ward off most events the way that pressure would do as if you were using a straight cpap.

Anyway, that's the way I'd try it, if it were me -- I'm not a doctor.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:57 am

I have enjoyed this thread. I have tried everything I can think of to display a chart like the first one, AHI vs Pressure, when I am viewing my copy of the Encore Analyzer, and I can not figure out how to do it.
Could someone please advise.

Thanks

slepr · Post by **slepr** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:59 am

Log in so I can PM you, and I will send detailed instructions.

meister · Post by **meister** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 12:06 pm

talk to your dentist about wearing a dental device with your cpap.
If you really want to achieve a zero level, sometimes you need
to think outside of the PAP box! A SilentNite device would be a
great start!

slepr · Post by **slepr** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 2:18 pm

Just a quick update from results over the past couple of weeks. My plan was to:

Course 1: APAP from 8.5 to 18 cm pressure - lets see how this higher range works, does it stem the OAI.
Course 2: CPAP at 9 cm
Course 3: CPAP at 6 cm

I started with #3, thinking of working my way up to higher pressure.

Course 3: 6cm was not enough to stem the HI at all. OAI was up there too. Overall numbers hovered from 9 to 12 AHI. With a fairly even split between HI and OAI. I think I fall into the camp of having my original sleep study titration being wrong (titrated at 7cm).

Course 2: 9 cm brought the HI down lower. After a few days I raised to 10 and that almost made the HI go away (.1 to .3). However I still have the OAI , range here is somewhere between 4 and 7 AHI overall. Improvement I would say from my original numbers, but still not as low as I would like to see.

Thinking now that the HI was taken care of with the pressure, possible increased pressure might help the OAI, I started on course 1.

Course 1: Based on courses 1 & 2 I started APAP at 9 and the high end was set to 18. That only lasted a few days as during the night my pressure did rise to the 16/17 cm range. But I could not tolerate the exhale pressures at those numbers. I felt like a balloon toy at a kids birthday party. The inhale pressure was not so bad, but that exhaling.... AHI for this jumped back up to the 12+ range. I had almost zero Non-Responsives (like .1 or .2) at those pressures.

I am not sure if the higher pressure would indeed stem the OAI or not, because I just could not sleep at those pressure levels. I did see a down trend but I don't really think I had enough time at those levels to make accurate numbers.

I'm back down between 10 and 13 pressures, with AHI hovering around 6-10. I plan to continue tweaking but I thought I'd give an update.

Thanks again for all the input.

rested gal · Post by **rested gal** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 2:32 pm

Got GERD?

-SWS's thoughts on loonlvr's massive clusters of events and loonlvr's followup post:
Nov 05, 2005 subject: SUCCESS AT LAST-GERD,420E, PRILOSEC AND BENADRYL

slepr · Post by **slepr** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 2:38 pm

Not at all.

Overall I am very healthy/active (6-1, 183lb), no other medical problems to speak of.

Suggestions for lowering my AHI?

think outside of the box!