A night's worth of data after finally getting an autopap/FFM

[Wonderbrah]

http://imgur.com/a/oqFZu

My prescribed pressure from my sleep study is 9.0. At the beginning of the night my pressure was set to 12-20 but at around 6am I changed it to 9-20 for some silly reason (don't ask).

This second album is actually from my first night after getting the new setup.

http://imgur.com/a/dNC5k

My AHI was lower here but my baseline pressure after initial ramp up seemed to be around 14 suggesting 9 is far too low (tell me if I'm wrong).

Would pressure settings would you suggest for me after looking at these two albums?

I don't know if it's foolish for me to ever expect an AHI of less than 1. I'm also not sure why I'm still getting obstructive events when my max pressure is at 20. If 20 isn't enough to ward off these events, then what is?

I'm using the Simplus full face mask which I believes comes highly recommended in terms of seal I think form this community and certainly my respiratory therapist. Looking at the leak rate graphs, I believe those sporadic short term spikes are from the seconds after I take my mask off before my machine senses it and shuts the pressure off. I'm using the auto-detect setting so I don't bother turning the machine off when I need to get up.

[HoseCrusher]

If there is no discomfort...

It would be interesting to see what a night with a minimum pressure of 15 would look like.

Also, do you wake up rested?

[Pugsy]

I don't know if it's foolish for me to ever expect an AHI of less than 1. I'm also not sure why I'm still getting obstructive events when my max pressure is at 20. If 20 isn't enough to ward off these events, then what is?

You were expecting to totally eradicate all OAs and hyponeas? If so, that is an unrealistic expectation.
It may happen at some time in the future and it may not but don't let use 0.0 OA and hyponea as your goal.
The centrals/CAs we have to ignore because we can't do anything about them with your machine and you don't have enough of them to worry about doing anything about them anyway.

Yes it does appear that the 9 cm starting point is probably a bit low because once the machine goes higher it never really comes back down all that much and from the looks of the Flow limitation graph I suspect that is probably the driving force behind the pressures. It's not like you were having a truckload of OAs or hyponeas because of the lower pressures.
I don't know how critical it is to start with a higher minimum pressure given the fact that it goes up fairly quickly into the night and stays there for the most part. You could try a higher starting pressure but I don't think you will see much of a change in the overall pressure graph once it gets up to where it likes to go...you can either start there or just go there fairly quickly. You might find starting at that higher pressure not so comfortable in terms of falling asleep.
Now if we saw a lot of clustering of OAs and hyponeas around the 9 to 10 cm time frame then yeah...for sure start higher but unless the reports change and show those things I don't think it is a critical issue.

As to why you sometimes need upwards of 20 cm....the standard reply...2 main culprits for needing more pressure...supine sleeping or REM sleep or maybe a little of both. That's why we have auto mode so that you can use lower for most of the night and only use higher when actually needed. It's a lot better choice than using 18 cm all night long.

[Wonderbrah]

I don't know if it's foolish for me to ever expect an AHI of less than 1. I'm also not sure why I'm still getting obstructive events when my max pressure is at 20. If 20 isn't enough to ward off these events, then what is?

You were expecting to totally eradicate all OAs and hyponeas? If so, that is an unrealistic expectation.
It may happen at some time in the future and it may not but don't let use 0.0 OA and hyponea as your goal.
The centrals/CAs we have to ignore because we can't do anything about them with your machine and you don't have enough of them to worry about doing anything about them anyway.

Yes it does appear that the 9 cm starting point is probably a bit low because once the machine goes higher it never really comes back down all that much and from the looks of the Flow limitation graph I suspect that is probably the driving force behind the pressures. It's not like you were having a truckload of OAs or hyponeas because of the lower pressures.
I don't know how critical it is to start with a higher minimum pressure given the fact that it goes up fairly quickly into the night and stays there for the most part. You could try a higher starting pressure but I don't think you will see much of a change in the overall pressure graph once it gets up to where it likes to go...you can either start there or just go there fairly quickly. You might find starting at that higher pressure not so comfortable in terms of falling asleep.
Now if we saw a lot of clustering of OAs and hyponeas around the 9 to 10 cm time frame then yeah...for sure start higher but unless the reports change and show those things I don't think it is a critical issue.

As to why you sometimes need upwards of 20 cm....the standard reply...2 main culprits for needing more pressure...supine sleeping or REM sleep or maybe a little of both. That's why we have auto mode so that you can use lower for most of the night and only use higher when actually needed. It's a lot better choice than using 18 cm all night long.

Boom, finally a night with <1.0 AHI- 0.99. Haha. You're right. The 9.0 starting pressure is much more comfortable than say a higher one so I've decided to keep the range from 9-20 and I think it's been working pretty well.

http://imgur.com/a/oxz3n

I have been waking up with puffy bags under my eyes for the last few days for some reason. I'm not sure why but it's pretty ugly when I look in the mirror. Thankfully dissipates within a few hours but still, ughh.