How to change pressure range on S9?

[AHI15]

Hi:

I seem to be very sensitive to aerophagia, even at my low pressures.

Initially my APAP range was set to 6-11.

Last Thursday the Dr. changed it to 7-11.

Now I am having much more aerophagia. This is making me sleep a bit worse, and two nights I slept the last 1-2 hrs with no mask, something I hadn't done for weeks. I almost did it again last might, but forced myself to keep it, and luckily fell back asleep from 5:30-6:45am. But when I woke up I had a massive burping party.

I think this may have made me wake up at 1:30am too, which these days I don't usually do anymore. I usually sleep fairly solid until the last 1-3 hrs of the morning, then start sleeping more off/on.

I want to change my range to 6-11 again.

How can I do this?

[kaiasgram]

This should do it: http://www.apneaboard.com/resmed-s9-cpap-setup

From there if you need more help just post again, we'll help you.

[AHI15]

Thanks.

[LSAT]

There is virtually no difference between the two settings. They are both on the low end of the scale. With either setting, I would assume that your average pressure is about 8-9...changing the lower end of the range from 7 to 6 will not change your average.

[kaiasgram]

There is virtually no difference between the two settings. They are both on the low end of the scale. With either setting, I would assume that your average pressure is about 8-9...changing the lower end of the range from 7 to 6 will not change your average.

Lowering the min pressure from 7 back to 6 may not change his average pressure, but I wonder if it could help with the aerophagia which is the issue he's trying to address. Perhaps just being at 6 some of the time was enough to minimize the aerophagia.

I also have aerophagia at low pressures and it has gotten worse when I've tried to increase my minimum pressure or max pressure.

AHI, are you using your EPR? I've found that helps a lot too. I have my EPR set to 3. I've tried it at 2, and the aerophagia becomes more of an issue again.

[AHI15]

Hi:

I'm at 6 most of the time. There are only a few times a night when my machine typically peaks up to the 7-9 range to fix some event, then tapers back down.

So having the baseline go from 6 to 7 in my case makes a significant difference in long-term average pressure.

[AHI15]

There is virtually no difference between the two settings. They are both on the low end of the scale. With either setting, I would assume that your average pressure is about 8-9...changing the lower end of the range from 7 to 6 will not change your average.

Lowering the min pressure from 7 back to 6 may not change his average pressure, but I wonder if it could help with the aerophagia which is the issue he's trying to address. Perhaps just being at 6 some of the time was enough to minimize the aerophagia.

I also have aerophagia at low pressures and it has gotten worse when I've tried to increase my minimum pressure or max pressure.

AHI, are you using your EPR? I've found that helps a lot too. I have my EPR set to 3. I've tried it at 2, and the aerophagia becomes more of an issue again.

What's EPR?

Sorry, I should know these things, but reading manuals takes precious energy that I have little of these days, and when I have chemically induced energy I usually spend it on going to the Dr or work a few hrs. But I do have about an hour left today to optimize my treatment a little bit...

Thanks for the input.

[kaiasgram]

There is virtually no difference between the two settings. They are both on the low end of the scale. With either setting, I would assume that your average pressure is about 8-9...changing the lower end of the range from 7 to 6 will not change your average.

Lowering the min pressure from 7 back to 6 may not change his average pressure, but I wonder if it could help with the aerophagia which is the issue he's trying to address. Perhaps just being at 6 some of the time was enough to minimize the aerophagia.

I also have aerophagia at low pressures and it has gotten worse when I've tried to increase my minimum pressure or max pressure.

AHI, are you using your EPR? I've found that helps a lot too. I have my EPR set to 3. I've tried it at 2, and the aerophagia becomes more of an issue again.

What's EPR?

Sorry, I should know these things, but reading manuals takes precious energy that I have little of these days, and when I have chemically induced energy I usually spend it on going to the Dr or work a few hrs. But I do have about an hour left today to optimize my treatment a little bit...

Thanks for the input.

No problem, AHI, happy to help. EPR is exhalation pressure relief. It lowers the pressure when you're exhaling. It helps me a bunch with the aerophagia. Do you need help finding it in the clinical settings?

[kaiasgram]

AHI, if you're still online, go into the Chat room, I just went in and can help you in real time to check out your EPR setting.

If not, that link to the clinical menu should help. You can see EPR in the settings menu. You can set it at 1, 2 or 3. 3 is maximum pressure relief. Having less incoming air to exhale against has been helpful to me. You then also set EPR to run all night, or just during RAMP (if you're using RAMP). I run my EPR all night.

The numbers refer to how many cm water pressure reduction -- so if you're at a pressure of 8, for example, setting your EPR to 3 means the pressure will drop to 5 when you exhale. EPR of 2 would drop your exhale pressure to 6 in this case. In any case the lowest possible pressure is 4. So if your cpap pressure is at 6, your EPR can only take you down to 4. I hope this makes sense and helps!

[AHI15]

Ok,

I think I can handle adjusting the EPR.

Mine was set to 2. I increased to 3.

What is the difference btw. EPR and BiPAP???

Thanks.

[AHI15]

AHI, if you're still online, go into the Chat room, I just went in and can help you in real time to check out your EPR setting.
If not, that link to the clinical menu should help. You can see EPR in the settings menu. You can set it at 1, 2 or 3. 3 is maximum pressure relief. Having less incoming air to exhale against has been helpful to me. You then also set EPR to run all night, or just during RAMP (if you're using RAMP). I run my EPR all night.
The numbers refer to how many cm water pressure reduction -- so if you're at a pressure of 8, for example, setting your EPR to 3 means the pressure will drop to 5 when you exhale. EPR of 2 would drop your exhale pressure to 6 in this case. In any case the lowest possible pressure is 4. So if your cpap pressure is at 6, your EPR can only take you down to 4. I hope this makes sense and helps!

Good explanation, thanks!

My settings also include the value of "patient" for EPR. Any idea what this means?


Thanks again.

[kaiasgram]

My settings also include the value of "patient" for EPR. Any idea what this means?

It's supposed to bring the EPR feature into the patient menu so you don't have to go into the clinical menu to set it. I think I tried that once but couldn't find it in the patient menu -- I did put humidity, temp, and ramp on "patient" and I see those. Let me try again. It's not a big deal since I intend to leave it set at 3 and don't need it to be that accessible.

[Pugsy]

What is the difference btw. EPR and BiPAP???

EPR works a lot like BiPap bilevel pressure support settings.
BiPap is Resprionics marketing term for their bilevel machine and VPAP is Resmed's marketing term. Both offer bilevel pressures.
One for inhale and one for exhale.

EPR does sort of the same thing but the timing is not quite the same. EPR is limited to 3cm reduction or difference but bilevel machines have a much wider choice in the difference between inhale and exhale.

While EPR of 3 is not exactly the same as Pressure support (difference between inhale and exhale on a bilevel machine) of 3 cm it is pretty close in what it feels like. I have tried it with my VPAP machine. I used straight cpap with EPR of 3 and then tried same 3 cm pressure support in straight belevel mode and while I could feel a little bit of difference in the timing of the respiration it wasn't a huge difference. the S9 VPAP doesn't offer EPR in the bilevel modes but since it does offer a straight cpap mode it offers EPR in cpap mode.