Change pressure settings yourself during compliance period?

[dream321]

Hi,

I've been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea and been on CPAP for 2 weeks so far. My AHI was 96 during my polysonomogram. Now the Resmed machine is giving me an AHI reading of about 10. My pressure is set to 6cm-16cm.

I'm on a 3 month rental to buy, through my health insurance. I've called my doctor's office to see if they can change the settings and they tell me I have to wait until my appointment at the end of June. Does anyone know if I will be deemed non-compliant if I take it upon myself to change the pressure settings?

[TASmart]

I figured that it was better to act first and grovel shamelessly if I got into trouble. My AHI is good, I am well rested and nobody said much at all about my doing my own adjustments, PA did say that I should not change the settings, but since I was to be very cautious, and I am fine with being cautious.

[Guest]

Does anyone know if I will be deemed non-compliant if I take it upon myself to change the pressure settings?

It will not. Compliance is to make sure you are using the cpap for more than 4hrs/day for 70% of 30 consecutive days. It has absolutely no bearing on what pressure the cpap is used at.

Their answer is a formal thing they have to go by. If you know how to adjust it for your health and comfort by all means do so. Just be sure to start a notebook and write down every setting even the ones you don't intend to change. Make a note why you changed what you did and the results of that change.

[Marillion]

Compliance is based on usage. Never on the user changing any settings... The advice to wait a month and leave the settings as is, is very wrong. Post your data using Sleepyhead software and then you can get advice on how to improve your settings. Having a treated AHI of 10 is not the best that you can do with that machine (which is an excellent one.) You can likely do much better.

[dream321]

It looks like it is automatic so why change them at all ?
Or do you really have a bipap and not a cpap ??

It's a CPAP.

I want to change the setting to start out higher because most of the apneas start in the single digits. So I'm thinking changing it to 10cm-16cm

[Marillion]

It looks like it is automatic so why change them at all ?
Or do you really have a bipap and not a cpap ??

It's a CPAP.

I want to change the setting to start out higher because most of the apneas start in the single digits. So I'm thinking changing it to 10cm-16cm

Your machine is actually an APAP since it is capable of a range of pressures, although it can be run in CPAP mode also where it is set to one specific pressure only. Currently you are using it in APAP mode.

Posting your data here via Sleepyhead software is the better way to decide what your pressure range and other settings need to be at. If you just go changing numbers on your own, you could even make your results worse, depending on what kind apneas and events you are experiencing. Only an in depth analysis of the data will reveal what the best course of action is. Otherwise, it is just a guessing game.

[nanwilson]

Do not listen to anything xxxyx says, he/she believes that they are never wrong, when most of the time they are VERY WRONG.
Please post your sleepyhead data and then someone in the know will tell you what you should change your settings to. If they are as you say, 6- to 16 and most of your problems are in the single numbers then perhaps we can optimize your therapy better by upping your minimum. It is definitely not a problem to change settings, there are no cpap police, if your dme tells you that you CAN'T do any changes, simply ignore. They are only after the almighty $$$$$$, they can bill your insurance more if they do more, and this is something you can do yourself
Welcome to the best darn sleep apnea forum ... you are now "a Hosehead, or if you were in Canada you would be called a Hoser"
Cheers
Nan

[dream321]

Posting your data here via Sleepyhead software is the better way to decide what your pressure range and other settings need to be at. If you just go changing numbers on your own, you could even make your results worse, depending on what kind apneas and events you are experiencing. Only an in depth analysis of the data will reveal what the best course of action is. Otherwise, it is just a guessing game.

How do I post Sleepyhead data? There is a lot of info in the program.

[Pugsy]

How to organize the data. There's 3 pages but sure to read all of them
https://sleep.tnet.com/resources/sleepyhead/shorganize

We don't need or want all the graphs...just the basics and you can get them all on one screen shot.
Examples in this thread
viewtopic/t103468/Need-help-with-screen-shots.html

How to use imgur to host the images so you can share them
https://sleep.tnet.com/reference/tips/imgur

[Guest]

and you know for sure that HIS insurance does not have a rule about him making changes
or that his DME or doctor would not say he was not compliant if he had made changes

Why don't you show us one insurer who requires a certain pressure during the compliance period, go ahead.

AND how do you know the OP is a male?

That should keep you busy.

[nanwilson]

Do not listen to anything xxxyx says, he/she believes that they are never wrong, when most of the time they are VERY WRONG.
Please post your sleepyhead data and then someone in the know will tell you what you should change your settings to. If they are as you say, 6- to 16 and most of your problems are in the single numbers then perhaps we can optimize your therapy better by upping your minimum. It is definitely not a problem to change settings, there are no cpap police, if your dme tells you that you CAN'T do any changes, simply ignore. They are only after the almighty $$$$$$, they can bill your insurance more if they do more, and this is something you can do yourself
Welcome to the best darn sleep apnea forum ... you are now "a Hosehead, or if you were in Canada you would be called a Hoser"
Cheers
Nan

===============

you have never proven that anything i said was wrong

werent you the person who thought pollen would not cause congestion in spite of all the otc meds to cure congestion from pollen

Nope not me, but I do notice that you tend to add useless information to a reply just as a distraction because you sooo need to make sure you cover your butt.

[D.H.]

I never heard of anybody being deemed "non-compliant" for any reason other than not enough hours and/or not enough nights. Possibly also too high AHI; not sure about that.

[chunkyfrog]

Hours only. That is why even the worst BRICKS keep track of hours.

[dream321]

Here is my Sleepyhead data:

[Pugsy]

The bulk of your AHI on this report above is ClearAirway/Central and more pressure won't fix it with your machine and could potentially make things worse.

Instead you need to try to figure out if those CAs/centrals are real or if they are awake/semi awake breathing irregularities getting flagged by mistake.

Do you have a lot of wake ups and awake time spent with the mask and machine on? In other words are you sleeping soundly or waking often fiddling with things???

I can't see the machine's actual settings...the pie chart is in the way (turn it off in Preferances/Appearance tab).

Looks like you are using Flex at maybe 1 or 2 and ramp starting at 4 cm for a short period of time.
What are the machines actual settings? Minimum and Maximum??