AHI increased with change to APAP

[kwcrnp]

So I've been on CPAP for 3 months and doing well. I was at a setting of 11. My AHI would range from .8 (rare) to 4.80 (rare) with an avg of 1.7.
I had my first appointment with sleep doctor Monday and I asked if I could change to an APAP setting, thinking my AHI would be a steady low number.
So they made it 5-15. The past 3 nights my AHI has been 2.8, 2.5, 3.3. On Sleepyhead I have a gradual up and down pattern from 9 to 15 that seems to
cycle 3 times in 7-8 hrs. I don't seem to stay at any one pressure for more then 5-10 min. I'd put a pic up but I forget how to do that complicated process

I realize this change just happened but I thought APAP was really good at lowering your AHI....I do feel good but I did on CPAP too. Is this normal and what is
the benefit of APAP over CPAP?

[BlackSpinner]

Change the 5 to closer to your needed pressure. It takes time to get up there and during that time you have problems.

[Pugsy]

Yep, what BlackSpinner said.
The minimum of 5 is too low and the machine can't get to where it needs to be quickly enough to prevent the events effectively. If you had need only 7 cm of pressure instead of 11 cm then you would have been okay with 5 cm minimum.
The cycles you see my be REM related. No way to know for sure.
Your AHI is still acceptable but obviously not quite as good as on 11 cm cpap.
If you raise the minimum to say 8 or 9 cm...then I think you will see an improvement in AHI and also the pressure variations may stabilize.

There was a good example of why the minimum needs to be closer to your needed pressure here.
Might be an interesting read for you. It also shows wild variations in pressure that settle down and the AHI while not horrible also settled down.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=39869&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

[kwcrnp]

Interesting that you both said that....I had in my mind settings of 9-13 (2 above and 2 below my CPAP)

I'll try to figure out how to change it and set it at 9-14.

Thanks!!

[Lizistired]

The link to the video for the machine settings is in my signature below.

Some of us do better on CPAP.