Newbie.. Take 2

[TPS316]

Some history. About 5 years ago I had a sleep study that placed me with mild to moderate apnea. They placed me on CPAP with low settings 6 cmH20.. With this machine I never really got used to using this and just stopped using it. Fast forward to today... Symptoms that I was having.. Severe snoring, Difficult to get out of bed... (fatigued/tired)... Once up I typically did not have issues staying a wake.

New doctor (general) orders up the overnight oximetry. This was indicating about 10 events per hour as in O2 levels dropping in the low 80's with heart rate spiking to about 140bpm. From this she convinced me I should start using the CPAP again.. She had be redo the basic oximetry while using the CPAP... This results came back with less events occurring.. I think less than 1/hr.. But my O2 levels were still dropping into the mid 80's.. Thus the order of putting 2l/hr O2 through the CPAP.... I convinced her to let me upgrade to the Resmed S9 autoset with H5i humidifier which is probably overkill but since I have decent insurance now and I would like to get a future proof machine. The best thing with this machine is that it in comfortable to use and for the 3 days I have been on it I have not thrown it off in the middle of the night.

Question... I have this set at low pressures still...Since I do not think my current condition will require high pressures... (set at 4 - 7 cmH20).... But if the APAP is working properly the number of events should basically go to near zero correct? I checked the machine's data and it shows it running at 6.8 cmH20 with less than 1 event per hour. Is this indicating that the machine is preventing the events, or that I am just not having events?

Thanks for any opinions...

[Wulfman...]

Some history. About 5 years ago I had a sleep study that placed me with mild to moderate apnea. They placed me on CPAP with low settings 6 cmH20.. With this machine I never really got used to using this and just stopped using it. Fast forward to today... Symptoms that I was having.. Severe snoring, Difficult to get out of bed... (fatigued/tired)... Once up I typically did not have issues staying a wake.

New doctor (general) orders up the overnight oximetry. This was indicating about 10 events per hour as in O2 levels dropping in the low 80's with heart rate spiking to about 140bpm. From this she convinced me I should start using the CPAP again.. She had be redo the basic oximetry while using the CPAP... This results came back with less events occurring.. I think less than 1/hr.. But my O2 levels were still dropping into the mid 80's.. Thus the order of putting 2l/hr O2 through the CPAP.... I convinced her to let me upgrade to the Resmed S9 autoset with H5i humidifier which is probably overkill but since I have decent insurance now and I would like to get a future proof machine. The best thing with this machine is that it in comfortable to use and for the 3 days I have been on it I have not thrown it off in the middle of the night.

Question... I have this set at low pressures still...Since I do not think my current condition will require high pressures... (set at 4 - 7 cmH20).... But if the APAP is working properly the number of events should basically go to near zero correct? I checked the machine's data and it shows it running at 6.8 cmH20 with less than 1 event per hour. Is this indicating that the machine is preventing the events, or that I am just not having events?

Thanks for any opinions...

Well, probably some of both. Are you using software to SEE the nightly data? If not, I'd strongly suggest it.
If your machine is running at near the max pressure you've set, I think it would be prudent to move your minimum pressure to about that pressure and move your maximum pressure a little higher. Then, see what the numbers are.


Den

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[Julie]

Hi - two things... the first is however many events you have do not affect your pressure settings because the settings are a factor of how much air pressure is necessary to keep your throat open and not about the severity - # of events - on your study. How many events you have (or don't have) is not related to how much pressure you need on Cpap... that a mechanical thing if you like. The second thing is that the machine is apparently catching more apneas, and not that they have suddenly stopped occurring (why would they if you've had them for so long?). So yes, you're having very few now, but would almost certainly have more and feel bad again if you weren't using Cpap. It's not a cure, but a controller... like insulin is for diabetes.