Bad AHI

[Upalot]

HI all, my AHI averages 8-10 nightly, i get up on average 7-10 a night. I never feel rested. Its very frustrating and extremely hard on my mental health. Its just wearing me out. i have been using CPAP for 2 1/2 years now and it has never really worked for me. i do not know what to do. how much does the AHI affect the therapy. If i am constantaly getting the higher AHI is this why I feel bad? I believe its my leak rate, but I dont know how to look at it and figure it out. I have oily skin and i believe my silicone seal on my mirage quatro full face mask always gets premature wear because the oil in my skin seems to basically break them down, than I believe my leak rates go up. Its a repeating shitty cycle that depresses the hell out of me. I never thought CPAP would be this hard and so difficult to get the little stuff right so your therapy will actually work. I am open to any advice or commits. Also do many people take sleep aids, if so what and how much. I will try anything to keep me from waking up, the getting up 7-10 times a night makes me crazy. The whole damn thing is just not working they way I am doing it. I not so silly to not think its me, I will try anything to be able to sleep. I am beyond desperate. If you have any advise please share it with me, I am really struggling with this stuff and its affecting my overall mental health badly. Thanks for your help. I can take baby steps and post my stuff from sleepy head if someone actually knows how to read the data. I surly do not. I am considering changing my liner every week or two. I believe another problem is my high preasures, I get up around 16 all the time. And I think the pressure just blows my mask open. I have tried everything short of stapling it to my head, which I will probably try this weekend. I have not found a way to keep my mask in place with the higher pressures no matter what I do. What do others do that have higher pressure needs in regards to keeping your mask or what ever you are using to not leak terribly. I bet my leaks are ruining my therapy, but i can not seem to get rid of them. Once again its very depressing, I just need a break with this thing so I can regain some faith in this machine that it actually will help me.

[Wulfman...]

HI all, my AHI averages 8-10 nightly, i get up on average 7-10 a night. I never feel rested. Its very frustrating and extremely hard on my mental health. Its just wearing me out. i have been using CPAP for 2 1/2 years now and it has never really worked for me. i do not know what to do. how much does the AHI affect the therapy. If i am constantaly getting the higher AHI is this why I feel bad? I believe its my leak rate, but I dont know how to look at it and figure it out. I have oily skin and i believe my silicone seal on my mirage quatro full face mask always gets premature wear because the oil in my skin seems to basically break them down, than I believe my leak rates go up. Its a repeating shitty cycle that depresses the hell out of me. I never thought CPAP would be this hard and so difficult to get the little stuff right so your therapy will actually work. I am open to any advice or commits. Also do many people take sleep aids, if so what and how much. I will try anything to keep me from waking up, the getting up 7-10 times a night makes me crazy. The whole damn thing is just not working they way I am doing it. I not so silly to not think its me, I will try anything to be able to sleep. I am beyond desperate. If you have any advise please share it with me, I am really struggling with this stuff and its affecting my overall mental health badly. Thanks for your help. I can take baby steps and post my stuff from sleepy head if someone actually knows how to read the data. I surly do not. I am considering changing my liner every week or two. I believe another problem is my high preasures, I get up around 16 all the time. And I think the pressure just blows my mask open. I have tried everything short of stapling it to my head, which I will probably try this weekend. I have not found a way to keep my mask in place with the higher pressures no matter what I do. What do others do that have higher pressure needs in regards to keeping your mask or what ever you are using to not leak terribly. I bet my leaks are ruining my therapy, but i can not seem to get rid of them. Once again its very depressing, I just need a break with this thing so I can regain some faith in this machine that it actually will help me.

You've given us no real information to go on. But, I see you're using an S9 Autoset APAP and a nasal mask. If you're using a range of pressures and/or leaking your therapy air out your mouth, that could account for your descriptions.

Before I go further, I'll ask the questions........What are your pressure settings and which mask ARE you using?


Den

.

[Julie]

Why haven't you tried a full face mask?

[kaiasgram]

OP is using the Mirage Quattro FFM.

[Wulfman...]

OP is using the Mirage Quattro FFM.

Profile shows Mirage Micro. That's why I asked as there seemed to be some conflicting information.


Den

.

[kaiasgram]

Upalot, do post some screenshots for us and include the events, flow rate, pressure, leak, flow limitation and snore graphs. Choose a couple of typical nights to post.

[49er]

Upalot,

I definitely understand your predicament as one who also feels that pap therapy has not yet worked for me in spite of optimal settings. But here is the good news in your case. With an AHI of 8-10, I will bet your therapy isn't optimized and once you post your screen shots, that knowledgeable folks will help you adjust it so things will improve.

Some people have had luck with sleep aids. I personally have not and while of course, I am not an expert, I am guessing that you won't either because it seems like your therapy isn't optimized. Maybe work on doing that first and then revisit the possibility of sleep aids?

Any reason you are using a full face mask? Have you tried nasal pillow/nasal masks? The reason I am asking is many DMEs and doctors will wrongly claim that the only masks that work at high pressures are full face masks but that is definitely not true. Any way, I am wondering if this is also an issue with your problems with pap therapy? I could be totally wrong so forgive me if I am.

Hang in there and don't give up.

49er

HI all, my AHI averages 8-10 nightly, i get up on average 7-10 a night. I never feel rested. Its very frustrating and extremely hard on my mental health. Its just wearing me out. i have been using CPAP for 2 1/2 years now and it has never really worked for me. i do not know what to do. how much does the AHI affect the therapy. If i am constantaly getting the higher AHI is this why I feel bad? I believe its my leak rate, but I dont know how to look at it and figure it out. I have oily skin and i believe my silicone seal on my mirage quatro full face mask always gets premature wear because the oil in my skin seems to basically break them down, than I believe my leak rates go up. Its a repeating shitty cycle that depresses the hell out of me. I never thought CPAP would be this hard and so difficult to get the little stuff right so your therapy will actually work. I am open to any advice or commits. Also do many people take sleep aids, if so what and how much. I will try anything to keep me from waking up, the getting up 7-10 times a night makes me crazy. The whole damn thing is just not working they way I am doing it. I not so silly to not think its me, I will try anything to be able to sleep. I am beyond desperate. If you have any advise please share it with me, I am really struggling with this stuff and its affecting my overall mental health badly. Thanks for your help. I can take baby steps and post my stuff from sleepy head if someone actually knows how to read the data. I surly do not. I am considering changing my liner every week or two. I believe another problem is my high preasures, I get up around 16 all the time. And I think the pressure just blows my mask open. I have tried everything short of stapling it to my head, which I will probably try this weekend. I have not found a way to keep my mask in place with the higher pressures no matter what I do. What do others do that have higher pressure needs in regards to keeping your mask or what ever you are using to not leak terribly. I bet my leaks are ruining my therapy, but i can not seem to get rid of them. Once again its very depressing, I just need a break with this thing so I can regain some faith in this machine that it actually will help me.

[kteague]

Oh my, you sound utterly depleted, and if you've had ineffective treatment all this time, it's no wonder. I remember times of misery and I feel for you. Do answer the questions that have been asked. I have a feeling some of the people here will help you be in a better place pretty quickly. I came here in 2006 in a very bad way, but my turnaround began very soon. With your AHI, no wonder you feel bad.

I have another question for you. When you get up those 7 - 10 times a night, do you turn the machine off or leave it on? If you leave it on, it could skew leak data. If you turn it off, that brings another question. Do you use a ramp feature? If so, at what pressure and for what length of time? Sometimes people who get up a lot restart their machine every time and end up spending a large part of their night in that repetitive ramp, which is ineffective for treatment purposes.

Sorry to add to the questions, but I think your relief is going to be found through your answers. Hang in there.

[GimmeAir]

Sorry you are having such a bad experience with remaining asleep at night. I have reduced my bio breaks to no more than two and usually only one by limiting fluid intake in the late afternoon and evening. I am also taking 10mg of time release melatonin at bedtime which seems to help and is not prescription.

[Pugsy]

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=97455&p=903181#p903181

Past thread above has some history in it and pretty much the same questions.
Also has an old report showing massive leaks...and for me to call them massive you know they are big.
I don't know if leaks were ever better managed. They are so big all bets are off in terms of accuracy of the data provided...it's possible the AHI is even higher due to the machine missing events.
I don't know if OP ever got a chance to use a bilevel machine to see if that would help with the pressures (they are quite high). I don't have time to read all the past posts except this first one above.

I believe its my leak rate, but I dont know how to look at it and figure it out.

What part is difficult to understand? In the above thread you were able to highlight in blue where the leak rate was acceptable...so seems like you do understand or did you forget?

Start over with a recent detailed nightly report...post it here.
Make sure to include the leak rate.

So...need these graphs on the right...Event, flow rate, pressure, leak and maybe flow limitation if very active
on the left need AHI bar graphs showing event categories. Turn off the pie chart and hide the calendar so we can seem some of the statistics also.

[Starlette]

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