More people on CPAP or APAP...?

[mikeandtina]

I'm still new to the sleep apnea process and have been reading many of the posts on this list. I am feeling better but don't want to settle for anything less than the best I can hope for. Most days are really groggy and mentally fuzzy in the a.m. and better in the afternoon.

On my best day I had an AHI was 2.1 - Currently my AHI is running around 3.5. I've been adjusting my pressure but my numbers are increasing or staying pat - not decreasing. I recently switched back to my nose pillow mask to see if the problem was mask related, but it made no difference in my numbers.

Recently I saw several posts where people said they had lower AHI's with continuous pressure (is that CPAP ?) as opposed to a range of pressure (is that APAP?)

Should I perhaps try continuous pressure instead of a pressure range? Has anyone had tried this and had more success? Why would one work better than the other.....?

I very much appreciate hearing your experiences or recommendations.

Tina

[Julie]

If you go to the lightbulb at the top of the main page you'll get more answers to those questions than you ever needed to know, but your guesses about a- vs cpap are correct re function. Probably more of us are on apap, but some go back to cpap over time and a lot of studies show that apap is not necessarily more therapeutic, though people like using it better and find it gives a more complete picture of what's going on (if you use the software).

[mikeandtina]

Found it - thanks, Julie!

[LSAT]

You said you are feeling better...that's the key to successful CPAPing. As long as your AHI is under 5 and you are 'feeling better'...don't be obsessed with trying to do better.

[DoriC]

Hi, I notice that your pressure range is 9-10, right? If so then you're actually on straight cpap so you might just try cpap at 10cms and see how you feel. What was your titration? Most people on auto use a range of at least 2 below and 2 above titration, but it varies.

[archangle]

Don't forget that an auto machine can do manual CPAP as well.

Some people set the minimum pressure to something lower than what they need to get good therapy and let the machine adjust up to the "right" pressure every night. Sometimes this causes problems because they have to have some breathing problems to get the right pressure and to keep it up there once it gets there. You can fix this by setting the minimum pressure higher.

Others have problems where the pressure gets too high and causes problems. If so, you can set the maximum pressure.

I set mine to have the "correct" pressure as the lower limit. I find I feel better with a little higher minimum pressure than the machine wants to automatically set it to. I set the maximum pressure to the maximum the machine will do. This works fine for me.