Awakening completely and abandoning therapy for the night

[Hoze-Noze]

Hi All,

I have been using my APAP - F & P Icon with Full Face Mask for about two weeks. Sometimes when awaken, I remove the mask
and depending on the amount of sleep I already got - I abandon the therapy for the night. How will this affect the reporting?

Hoze-Noze

[mars]

Hi All,

I have been using my APAP - F & P Icon with Full Face Mask for about two weeks. Sometimes when awaken, I remove the mask
and depending on the amount of sleep I already got - I abandon the therapy for the night. How will this affect the reporting?

Hoze-Noze

I do not understand - why are you concerned about the "reporting"?

And how could anyone on the Forum possibly answer your question as you give no details?

And as you are abandoning therapy whenever it suits you, you know better than anyone the answer to your question.

[danimal71]

It doesn't affect the reporting as the machine only reports for the time you had the machine on. Thus you could have done great with the machine on and then terrible once you took it off. You'll never know the answer to how you did with it off.

I understand the part about abandoning it. I have woken at 3:30am several times and just taken it off. Now that I have been using it longer and am starting to get a mask or two to feel\fit good I have been leaving it on. Last night I woke up around 3ish with my nose being sore from the nasal pillows so I took it off and put on my nasal mask. I literally went right back to sleep. I slept just over 8hrs OTH (on the hose) which is the longest I have gone since starting CPAP. I feel decent this morning but know I still have a way to go. Set goals for yourself and try and lengthen the time you wear it each night...even if you wake up.

[Hoze-Noze]

I am sorry "mars" . I am a new user of the APAP machine. I am not sure what details am I supposed to add in.
and my question is obviously a stupid one. You did not have to be so rude. I thought that what the forum was for -
to assist people. Today was the first time I've seen this site and may not be too clued up on how to use it or what are the right questions.
Thank you for making the first contact on the forum such a pleasant one for me....

[Hoze-Noze]

Thank you "danimal71". I appreciate it.

[danimal71]

No problem. The only stupid question is the one not asked.

What I got from your question was basically how does giving up on your therapy affect your overall therapy. Basically by not using the CPAP anytime you sleep you are taking a lower dose of the prescribed "medication" than you are supposed to.

Think of it this way. If you sleep without the CPAP on and you have an apnic event....what happens if your mind nevers arouses you to recover from that event? I'm not saying to constantly live in fear of that happening but theoretically it can.

Are you having difficulty adjusting to the mask or the pressure?

[Hoze-Noze]

No not really. I have had some good nights of sleep. There seems to be no leak from the mask. The reason I feel the need to remove the mask
is when I awake the pressure is very high and I feel totally uncomfortable and there fore switch off machine and remove mask immediately. I thought that if I re-started
machine when trying to go back to sleep would affect what is being recorded hence my initial question.

But you have cleared that up. I will re-start the therapy when going back to sleep from now.

[Janknitz]

Your machine records two types of data:

1. Compliance data--how long you actually use the machine. This data is used by your insurance company to determine if they will pay for your machine or not.

2. Efficacy data (I think you machine has this, not all machines do). This tells whether or not the therapy is working for you to bring down your AHI and deliver effective treatment.

When you remove the mask in the middle of the night, the compliance data will record that. If you are not getting enough hours of compliance in, your insurance company will deny payment.

Every time you sleep without the machine on you are harming your body. You need to work on keeping the mask on all night, every night.

I awake the pressure is very high and I feel totally uncomfortable and there fore switch off machine and remove mask immediately. I thought that if I re-started
machine when trying to go back to sleep would affect what is being recorded hence my initial question.

Check to see if your machine has a "ramp" button. That will lower the pressure back to a pre-set pressure and then gradually increase the pressure again as you are sleeping. If your machine doesn't have some sort of ramp button, you can turn the machine off and then on again--it won't affect your compliance data, so no worries there. The compliance data simply records the total time you are using the machine.

Over time you will get used to the pressure and no longer need this. More than likely you are waking because the higher pressure causes your mask to leak some. If you can set your pressure higher temporarily to adjust the mask and then put it back to your usual settings, you probbly can eliminate this problem.

[XSnorer]

Hose-Nose, to add to "how does it affect reporting?" question. It potentially gives an inaccurate reading for the night. Just yesterday I was looking at my some of my charts. On one particular night almost all of the events were between 3 and 5 AM. Maybe this is normal for some folks but in my case it was an abnormal night. Nonetheless, my AHI results for the evening would have been much better had I taken off the mask before 3AM. ... becasue the 3AM to 5am results would have never been recorded.

One other thing to add to danimal71's comments is that an increase in AHI correlates with low blood oxygen. Not a good thing. So it's better if you keep the therapy going so as not to get into the low blood oxygen zone.

[roboaug]

When I am awoken in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep because of the air pressure I just reach over and hit the ramp button. That immediately drops the pressure down and I am able to drift off again. My tech says my ramp is set at 40 minutes which I honestly don't know if that is a long or short ramp time but I would rather ramp in the middle of the night than toss the mask off. Over time I have found that I am able to drift back to sleep without using the ramp but every now and then I need to. Don't give up, keep trying and good luck!

[Hoze-Noze]

Thank you for the comments! This really helps!