Using Respironics asv bipap lost weight, apena worse

[Boop]

i just recently lost 30 lbs. I am very discouraged, because my apnea is worse . It started with aerophagia. I would wake up with horrible chest and stomach pain. So much air in my stomach. I am not sleeping as well as I was, which wasn't that great anyway. My ahi is increasing. I feel just awful when I wake up. Was sleeping berween 5-6 hrs. Now that has gone down. My doc changed the epap min to 13, which is the same as my reading for my 90% epap data. That made it worse. Ahi went to 14. Unheard of for me. Then he told me to put the epap min to 9.5. That didn't help either. Even where I never saw anything on periodic breathing, is now 2%. I tried different setting on my own but I just not knowledgable enough.

I call him again. He said to put put the epap min back to the original 8.5.

I thought that if you lost weight it would get better. I also thought that, the machine is suppose to be smart enough to adjust to what's going on. With all these different settings, why is he only changing one? There are 3 more. Is this machine for me now? Do they need to Change the machine? Or check it out to see if it is working correctly? But it has been doing its job until I lost weight. I am so confused.

I suggested to him that maybe I should get a new study done in the lab. I dread this because I don't sleep well in the lab. This time I am going to take the sleeping pill that the doc recommended. He agreed for me to go back to the lab. But what machine should they use? The same asv or something else.

Sorry right now I am not able to supply you with any data. My son said he will try to help me later.

[Boop]

Thx. I have done research on aerophagia. I am dealing with the aerophagia. I am up set Abt losing the weight and now the apnea is worse.

[Pugsy]

Why are you on an ASV bilevel machine?
Normally they aren't used unless someone is having central apnea or a combination of central & obstructive apnea?

Losing weight sometimes helps obstructive sleep apnea (please note I said sometimes) in that sometimes pressure needs are reduced and unfortunately sometimes the pressure needs are made worse and sometimes the OSA itself gets reduced significantly but it isn't guaranteed. If it was only weight related we wouldn't have so many skinny people with OSA.

Central apnea is not usually related to weight at all.

[Boop]

When I was in the lab they said that I had a lot of centrals because of the high pressure. Thats all I know.

[Pugsy]

Do you use the software to see exactly what your AHI is composed of or are you using only the data off the LCD screen?

[Boop]

Just the info on the screen. My son once was helping me with encore. But since my ahi was ok and I wasn't having not too serious issues I didn't follow thru. When he comes from work should we proceed with encore or is their something else to use? Thx

[Pugsy]

You could try SleepyHead but sometimes it gets a little squirrelly depending on the settings on the 960 machine if that is what you are using. If yours is the model 950 then I think SleepyHead is probably stable.
I mention this only because I have see a couple of situations where SleepyHead acted up with 960 data.
Doesn't happen all the time...just sometime.
https://sleep.tnet.com/equipment

[Boop]

I have the 960. In the past I did use sleepyhead and the info was a little crazy. Do you think sleepyhead has improve for the 960?

[Pugsy]

There's a good chance the most recent version of SH (which is a little over a year old) will work.
I know one person who was having trouble with SH and his 960 but only when he had his machine set at some sort of setting (we never could isolate the cause). Sometimes SH reports were fine and sometimes they weren't. I used a 960 for about a month and had no issues with SH at all...and the guy that did, it was weird that sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

[Pugsy]

We really need to see exactly what the events are that is making up that AHI and we can't tell what they are without software.

Also need to know exactly what your settings are right now.
Min and max EPAP
Min and max PS
Max IPAP

[Julie]

Often weight loss results in masks no longer fitting properly, which may not be obvious til you're asleep, so seeing leak rates on SH would be a good idea.

[Boop]

I just got the airfit F10 mask. Would sleepyhead show different info on leaks. The machine is sayings no leaks

[Pugsy]

The leak information on the LCD screen is % of time in large leak and if it is not showing any % then you never went to large leak territory.

SH shows the leak graphs which will go up and down but if your machine says no large leaks then that's what SH will show because SH just shows what the machine shows.

Except...minor adjustment to SH is needed because it defaults to show ResMed leak numbers as the baseline and Respironics large leak territory begins a lot higher than ResMed's large leak territory.
So until that adjustment is made SH will show time in large leak when there wasn't any.

But if your machine is saying no % of time in large leak..then leaks aren't an issue unless they are disturbing your sleep which is another thing entirely.

[Boop]

I will try to download sleepy head. My settings are:

Max pressure: 25
Epap min: 8.5
Epap max : 15
Ps min : 0
Ps max: 10

[JDS74]

I will try to download sleepy head. My settings are:

Max pressure: 25
Epap min: 8.5
Epap max : 15
Ps min : 0
Ps max: 10

With these settings, your machine is acting like an auto CPAP when you start.
You might try:
Max Pressure: 25
EPAPMin: 5.0
EPAPMax: 15
PSMin: 3.5
PSMax: 10

as a way to reduce the aerophaghia while keeping the pressure high enough to prevent OSA events.

The latest version of SH has worked fine for me.
If Encore is working, keep using it.