Well - what an interesting week this has been! I started just last Monday as a total rookie. Thanks to all of you on this forum I feel that I sorta know my way around the machine and the various parameters.
Here's a synopsis of decisions made and where I am today.
First night - Auto wide open 4-20 cm. Everything's new - mask doesn't yet fit quite right because I haven't found all of the options. This mask adjusts it's angle, length and width of nose pillows quite nicely. Hard time getting used to having something attached to my head!
Night 2 - still wide open - actually my best night's sleep of the week - probably because I was so exhausted from the night before BUT I can already feel more energy.
Night 3 - WOW - problems all over the place. Air blasting into my mouth, snoring here and there, mask just won't cooperate. Tired, tired tired.....
Night 4 - honestly can't remember it here. The charts say it was a wild night but it's faded into the distance.
Night 5 - at the advice of several I limited the Auto to 8 - 16 - especially after finding that many of my most serious air problems were happening at the higher levels AND that all snoring ceased at 11cm (JUST LOVE that software). Much better results but still having troubles with the mouth air thing.
Night 6 - tightened up both the low end and high end - now 10-15 with cflex set to 1. Other than a burp that I took my mask off for (and now have the blemish of a great big leak indicator!!) I had a relatively nice night's sleep. Also somewhere in here began to use Bag Balm to help seal the nostrils and help also with the soreness. It works very nicely I must say.
Tonight is the first night in several days that I won't make any adjustments and I'm looking forward to it. Encore told me that I had only 1 tiny little snore (down from the high 20s) and my AHI was down in the 6.6 range and total time in apnea was 232sec (down from the 400s).
Progress is steady - uninterrupted sleep is coming, I just KNOW it.
The one thing that really surprised me is that the higher pressures (>15) actually seemed to CAUSE apneas - and certainly caused a great deal of discomfort.
Again - a great big thanks to all of you for your help and support.
Happy Easter and a Blessed Passover.
Ken
Reflections on week #1 - Remstar Auto C-Flex / Comfortlite 2
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Ken,
Good report & glad you are so enthusiastic about the process.
I believe you did the right thing in narrowing the range. Some of us have a rule we call the 3up3down rule (actually I favour 3down2up). This rule says to set your AUTO no more than 3 CMS below titration recomm & no more than 3 above.
Some AUTOs (Remstar for one) can do a 'runaway' where they go to max pressure setting & stay there & that then triggers leaks and poor sleep.
My experience with face masks is that above 15 cms they become pretty hard to seal. Nasal pillows seem to be able to handle (for me anyway) higher cms.
Do you have a face mask you can compare to your nasal pillows (I hope I am right in assuming your mask is a n/p)
Keep up the good effort.
Cheers
DSM
Good report & glad you are so enthusiastic about the process.
I believe you did the right thing in narrowing the range. Some of us have a rule we call the 3up3down rule (actually I favour 3down2up). This rule says to set your AUTO no more than 3 CMS below titration recomm & no more than 3 above.
Some AUTOs (Remstar for one) can do a 'runaway' where they go to max pressure setting & stay there & that then triggers leaks and poor sleep.
My experience with face masks is that above 15 cms they become pretty hard to seal. Nasal pillows seem to be able to handle (for me anyway) higher cms.
Do you have a face mask you can compare to your nasal pillows (I hope I am right in assuming your mask is a n/p)
Keep up the good effort.
Cheers
DSM
xPAP and Quattro std mask (plus a pad-a-cheek anti-leak strap)
Interesting - that's exactly what it felt like on one night. I just turned it off and started over.dsm wrote:Some AUTOs (Remstar for one) can do a 'runaway' where they go to max pressure setting & stay there & that then triggers leaks and poor sleep.
I'd agree with the 15 in my very limited experience. The only way these pillows can handle much more than that is by tightening them up and while that may be possible in the future I'm tending a bit toward soreness as it is.dsm wrote:My experience with face masks is that above 15 cms they become pretty hard to seal. Nasal pillows seem to be able to handle (for me anyway) higher cms.
All I have is the "simple cushion" thing that they sent which is a nasal mask and in the very limited time I gave it I found it totally worthless - lots of leaks, not very adjustable etc. I might try it again now that I know more about it but don't expect much. It seems to me to be very inferior to the pillows - but I really have nothing to compare it to.dsm wrote:Do you have a face mask you can compare to your nasal pillows
Thanks again for your feedback.
Ken
Ken,
Getting your pressures adjusted just right tends to be part of the process. Figuring out how to adjust your mask to reduce leaks or to figure out what mask works best for you is another part of the beginning process - although finding the right mask is probably a never ending process.
You mention the air leaks. Higher pressures naturally will increase the tendency for masks to leak and many users have either tried a chin strap or taping their mouth to help stop air leaking thru the mouth. I have tried both and found a chin strap works very well for me. My AHIs are ranging between 2.0 and 5.5 and snores are down to one per night. It has taken me nearly 3 months to get my numbers down this low. During my sleep study I was given an AHI of 51. So that's a big drop. I use the Aura nasal pillows by the way. So, it usually takes some tweaking to get the best therapy. Keep at it.
George
Getting your pressures adjusted just right tends to be part of the process. Figuring out how to adjust your mask to reduce leaks or to figure out what mask works best for you is another part of the beginning process - although finding the right mask is probably a never ending process.
You mention the air leaks. Higher pressures naturally will increase the tendency for masks to leak and many users have either tried a chin strap or taping their mouth to help stop air leaking thru the mouth. I have tried both and found a chin strap works very well for me. My AHIs are ranging between 2.0 and 5.5 and snores are down to one per night. It has taken me nearly 3 months to get my numbers down this low. During my sleep study I was given an AHI of 51. So that's a big drop. I use the Aura nasal pillows by the way. So, it usually takes some tweaking to get the best therapy. Keep at it.
George
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