first night with my new gear...

driver8 · Post by **driver8** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 6:29 pm

i've posted here once as a guest previously.

i went for my initial study and they decided that yes -- i did have oca. (not terribly surprised.) went for my second study + titration about a month ago now.

went to bed with a mirage activa mask, but woke up a few hours later feeling claustrophobic. before i could even open my eyes to say 'hey, get this thing off me' they were on me -- so i guess one of my charts was looking strange.

they switched me to a nasal aire II which was better, but i woke up with a sore nose. i DID feel better though despite having slept in a weird bed all wired up and unable to move... so i know they were on to something!

today i picked up my machine. they set me up with the following:

-resmed s8 autoset vantage
-humidaire 3i
-mirage swift mask
-data card

it all came in what looks like a blue laptop case, not too terrible to travel with... and this mask was easily my favorite so far.

i'm setup with it to do the following:

- 20 minute ramp
- auto cpap (6 - 20 pressure)

tonight's my first night on my own machine. should be interesting!

questions:

do most people use a humidifier every night?

anyone know what format the data is on the card? i've got a number of smartcard readers around, but not software for it yet.

any other suggestions? any thoughts on this setup from people who have / have had it?

yardbird · Post by **yardbird** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:08 pm

I'm gooing to ask... what was your titrated pressure? Did they say?
I'm certainly no expert, but a range of 6-20 seems a bit large.

I just got a new Swift. I've slept with it for 2 nights now. I sleep with the hose down rather than up over my head. It's just how I'm used to doing it. There was a thread on hewre about Swifts being noisy, but I'm coming to the conclusion that they're noisy for folks that need higher pressure. My pressure was 8cm which isn't high. I'm guessing anything below 12 is ok.. and beyond that it may get noisey. With a CPAP pressure of 8cm I have set my REMstar auto to range 6 to 10.

This time of year I need the humidifier. I live in the northeast and houses get cooler and drier during the heating season. I probably won't need the humidifier in the summer months UNLESS we run the air conditioner which we don't normally have to do except a few nights the entire summer.

I don't have the same machine as you, but I've heard nothing but good things about the one you have. Sounds like they're taking care of you!

ProfessorSleep · Post by **ProfessorSleep** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:30 pm

Welcome to hosehead land! It's good you got diagnosed and are on the road to treatment. I don't have the same machine, but do use the swift - it's a great interface, in my opinion, and a good many folks here use it. I'm sure you'll get good help with your other questions. I also agree with yardbird that the 6-20 range for the auto is a bit wide but.I had a titrated pressure of 8 and now run at straight cpap at 8 which eliminates nearly all apneic and hypopneic events. Everyone's experience is different, though. Anyway, welcome - you've come to a great place!

driver8 · Post by **driver8** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 8:02 pm

my titrated pressure was 13, but there were still a few events worth looking at, so they initially told me i'd be running at 15...

not sure why my range is so wide...

how do you guys determine whether you're still having events at a certain pressure? based on the logs from the software? i might look into getting the resmed software, or seeing if i can get anything useful off my card.

Apneaat22 · Post by **Apneaat22** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:00 am

I am envious of the different masks they had you on there. The only one they would give me was a Comfort Gel which I have decided I hate. I asked about the Activa, Swift, Comfort Curve, and Breeze and they looked at me clueless so I have had to try out different masks after the fact.

Hope all works well for you. Welcome to the land of the living.

Adam

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 8:18 am

Yeah -- I'm more than happy about my Doctor, and my Sleep Studies, etc... They've all been great. When I went for titration they sent me home with the Activa and the Nasal Aire II (ick) -- and when I picked up my gear yesterday they had the mirage that I'd mentioned waiting for me.

I see now that getting a machine and 3 masks is NOT necessarily the norm.

I've got questions for the more experienced folks, will post a little later on when I have a few mins.

neversleeps · Post by **neversleeps** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 8:26 am

driver8 wrote:not sure why my range is so wide...

how do you guys determine whether you're still having events at a certain pressure? based on the logs from the software? i might look into getting the resmed software, or seeing if i can get anything useful off my card.

If I was titrated at 13 or possibly 15, I'd change my pressure range to 12-16, but only if you're able to see your nightly stats. Doesn't the Vantage have some sort of readout right on the machine? (Thought I read that somewhere...) Otherwise, you need the software to see what's happening at each pressure level, how many events, etc. Then you can zero in on the best range.

I use my heated humidifier and the Aussie Heated Hose every night, winter, spring, summer and fall.

driver8 · Post by **driver8** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 10:16 am

ok, i checked the notes I got yesterday, and I'm set for 6-20 -- which still seems like a wide range...but it felt ok to me?

Will ask about it next time -- not really willing to lay out the $ for the software just yet, but might take a crack at seeing what I can get from my card...

so here's a question. got all prepped and went to bed last night. uneventful. took a few minutes to find a comfortable position, and then a few more to remember to only breathe through my nose..

< insert sound of sleeping here >

we need some history here. i can (and have) slept through everything. i can sleep in the shower, i can sleep on a boat, i can fall asleep stading, sitting, anything. nothing wakes me up. i frequently need to set 4 or 5 alarms, and there are still days when i wake up to find that i turned the alarms off and fell asleep again.

i woke up about 5 hours later. completely rested, like it was time to get up. it was 4:08am, and it was still dark. alarms weren't set until 6am today. is it possible that since i was getting much better sleep, that i needed less? i'm feeling great this morning....

i ended up laying in bed for a while, i did a few darth vader impersonations and i think i drifted off for another 1/2 hour or so....

Apneaat22 · Post by **Apneaat22** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 10:35 am

I had the exact same post in my stage you are in. I came to the same conclusion, your body is used to getting X number of hours at the previous efficiency. Now you can get the equivalent sleep in a much shorter amount of time. I went from 11 hours and still tired to 4. My body got used to sleeping the 8 hours and getting more rest over time. Until then, I was still feeling tired since I was getting no more sleep, but the daze I was in went away since my body wasn't so stressed from fighting to breath all night.

Adam

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 5:29 am

night two!

well, something went horribly wrong last night.... woke up this morning to a fierce bloody nose. not sure if it was a fit issue or something else yet.

ozij · Post by **ozij** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 8:12 am

Did you use your humidifier? The bloody nose could be a result of the membranes drying up.

I use mine - with the heated hose - every night. I live in a very dry environment.

I too woke up very early on the first nights of effective therapy, eventually I settled to normal hours.

I used the software on my machine to follow my results, and discovered I was one of those people who do better when the range is narrower.

Good luck - and tell us how you're doing, and what that nosebleed was about.

O.

driver8 · Post by **driver8** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 8:22 am

ok!

a very helpful member just showed me how to get some real data from my machine, so that's going to help a lot. thanks!

here's what i've got. i'm not even sure what all of it means yet!

sleep time: 6:49
pressure: 10.6
leak: .12 L/sec
AHI: 3.0
AI: 0
HI: 3.0

not really sure on the humidifier front -- i had it on, but only on '2' out of 5 or 6. maybe it needs to be higher? my nose isn't sore now (3 hours after waking up) so i don't feel like it was a fit problem.

Sleepless on LI · Post by **Sleepless on LI** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 9:29 am

Hi and welcome, driver8.

Your stats are pretty good! No apnea at all, you stayed far under your titrated level and had a 3 HI? Sounds like you've definitely hit the ground running. I had first agreed when I read Neversleeps suggestion to have the setting at 12-16 since you said your titrated rate was 13, but you were running that night sometimes at 15. But at our sleep studies, we are not really simulating normal sleeping conditions most of the times, if not all. And 6-20 is way too wide a range, IMHO.

Maybe if you have the ability to adjust your settings, you could make them 9-16 for now and read your card and see what pressures you normally run at, and also how high or low you go during the night and for how long. You really can't draw conclusions based on one night, but rather have to give it at least a week or two to see the patterns emerge. Nothing stays consistent night to night, usually, as is life, ever-chaning. But sounds like you're really off to a good start, especially with the great set up they gave you.

Use your HH if you find your nose bleeds! Good luck.

driver8 · Post by **driver8** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 12:54 pm

with an AHI of 3 and the amount of time i slept, i think that works out to having had about 21 hypoapneas during the night, which doesn't seem like very many?

i'll definitely run the humidifier higher tonight to see what happens!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 1:42 pm

Put it this way. With an AHI under 5 you wouldn't even qualify for being diagnosed with OSA. So 3 is fantastic.