apap questions

[painterman]

I am new to the cpap lifestyle. I have been doing it for about a week now. My parents and one brother have been using cpcp for years. I got a m series auto cpap because I had a choice (insurance would not cover it). My brother had a question for me that I could not answer. This question was "Doesn't an apap machine keep you from having any apneas because it will raise up the pressure to stop them?" or something along that line. My encore pro reports will list the apneas that I had at each pressure. Does that mean they were apneas that happened or apneas that were avoided. Also what qualifies as an apnea? Is it length of time such as a minimum length of time to quailfy to make it on the chart. Sorry if these questions are so basic but that is where I am. Is there any apnea primer that would give all the basics of reading charts and understanding how to react to them, that is written in basic english? I would really appreciate some help to understand all this stuff.

[NarcoApneac]

In its help system, Encore Pro has definitions of all the terms it uses. Also, go through the tutorials on the disk if you haven't done so already, and check out the yellow lightbulb on cpaptalk.com.

By the way, Encore reports the events that it could not stop, along with the pressures under which they originated.

[Goofproof]

In a ideal world APAP should respond in time to stop apneas from occuring, however, this is not, nor ever will be a ideal world.

A APAP will try to stop events, but many things can go wrong, machine set to the wrong range, making it too slow to respond to the events. Mask leaks, Mouthleaks, causing false pressure rises, snoring causing false pressure rises. Then theres the fact that sometimes our bodies just don't want to play well tthat night.

So we do what we can to correct the problems, as they come up, it's not just open the box and plug in, that version of machine doesn't exist. Jim

At least with a machine that records data and the correct software, you don't have to be content with your treatment provider, picking you treatment out of a hat or guessing blindly. You can see for yourself.

[painterman]

Thanks for your help. All the terminology, different equipment, and all the choices of masks is just overloading my tired foggy brain. Why is having a pressure to high bad? I understand that the higher the pressure the more leaks and so on but I have also heard that high pressure can give you more apneas. I don't quite understand how that would be. Can anyone enlighten me on that (if it is true)

[Goofproof]

Too high a pressure can trigger central apnea, that's where the brain stopps trying to control your lungs(Bad). You want to stop your throat from closing without causing more problems for yourself. also as you say the more pressure the more leaks and leaks cause us a lot of our trouble. Jim

[GoofyUT]

GREAT and very helpful posts, jim!

BRAVO!!!

Chuck

[blarg]

Too high a pressure can trigger central apnea...

More commonly it can pump air into your stomach which can be painful (aerophagia) and make it hard/uncomfortable to exhale. Generally, the higher the pressure, the more uncomfortable things get all around. I'm not saying pressure induced centrals don't occur, just saying that there are other things to be worrying about in general.

[DME_Guy]

Different machines use different algorithms. The M Series auto is flow based. When your flow rate decreases, it will raise the pressure to prevent an apnea. If an apnea does occur, it's really too late for the machine to do anything. Once the apnea event ends, it will raise the pressure to try and stop further apnea events. It will also raies pressure based on snoring. I can't remember how many snores per minute willcause it to raise pressure. If you don't have any apnea events at a given pressure it will slowly lower pressure until it senses your flow is decreasing.