Need help, suspect UARS. Want to try APAP - need advice and guidance.

[canyouhearmeaya]

I have a sound meter on my phone.
If I place the phone on the left side of the machine I get about 55 DB on inhale at the highest.
If I place the phone on the bed about 2 ft away from the machine I get about 35 DB on inhale.

Bear in mind that without doing anything the ambient noise level is 32 DB without the machine even being on and I am not moving at all. It's essentially silent at 2 ft away.

Gotta run, can't be late for beauty trip.

Hmm, I get around 31/32 similar to you ambient. Right next to the machine on inhale it's 50-55db, with the phone around 2ft from the machine and me stood in the opposite direction nearly 2m away, on inhale is anywhere from 35-40, typically around 38.

[ChicagoGranny]

Assuming your machine does not have a defect, you may want to try a hose cover. They do a good job of dampening any noise that is traveling through the hose. https://www.cpap.com/productpage/snuggl ... cover.html

Let me add that hypersensitivity to noise is sometimes a symptom of untreated sleep apnea. After I got a good CPAP therapy going, I became much less sensitive to noise at night including the noise of my breathing.

[canyouhearmeaya]

Assuming your machine does not have a defect, you may want to try a hose cover. They do a good job of dampening any noise that is traveling through the hose. https://www.cpap.com/productpage/snuggl ... cover.html

Let me add that hypersensitivity to noise is sometimes a symptom of untreated sleep apnea. After I got a good CPAP therapy going, I became much less sensitive to noise at night including the noise of my breathing.

True, sleep deprivation = sensitive to everything. It's a nasty paradoxical cycle isn't it!! You don't sleep properly so you're hypersensitive, and then you can't sleep with the treatment to your sleep issue, BECAUSE of the sensitivity. The irony of life..

Maybe that's all it is. Fingers crossed a dose of nytol + ear plugs tonight and I can get a night with the CPAP under my belt. I sure hope so.

[ChicagoGranny]

nytol

Restless legs syndrome is positively correlated with sleep apnea. Do you have any symptoms of RLS? Sedating anthihistamines (One of the active ingredients in Nytol.) worsens RLS.

[canyouhearmeaya]

nytol

Restless legs syndrome is positively correlated with sleep apnea. Do you have any symptoms of RLS? Sedating anthihistamines (One of the active ingredients in Nytol.) worsens RLS.

According to the NHS the symptoms are:

tingling, burning, itching or throbbing
a "creepy-crawly" feeling
feeling like fizzy water is inside the blood vessels in the legs
a painful, cramping sensation in the legs, particularly in the calves

In the legs, or sometimes arms, chest face.

I can't say I experience any of those symptoms, no.

[canyouhearmeaya]

Okay, with the combination of ear plugs + nytol, I managed to get 5 hours on the machine last night before I ended up taking it off. Here are the screen shots from sleepy head:

https://ibb.co/cCy32o
https://ibb.co/migZ8T
https://ibb.co/iqwqho
https://ibb.co/iKLBoT
https://ibb.co/ju3WoT

Can anyone see anything of relevance / any suggestions for adjusting set up? Also I went to bed around midnight, that first bit of data then the gap is where I would have wore it momentarily earlier in the evening when I was playing around with it.

I know at one point I woke up and my mouth was open and the air was leaking through my mouth. Did have a bit of allergy flair up (hayfever) yesterday evening which probably didn't help with congestion.

[Pugsy]

If you share images of your reports again review this thread.
viewtopic/t158560/How-to-post-images-for-review.html
You can get all that is needed on one image including the flow limitation graph.

The only thing exciting on the report is the flow limitation graph and some of that might have been related to the allergy flare up and nasal congestion.

Since you didn't have very many apnea events on the sleep study you aren't going to see much go on with these reports.
Remember I told you that you would have to go more by subjective feelings than by numbers because your numbers aren't going to tell you much.

No need to change the settings. For now your primary job is to get where you can sleep decently with the machine.
Until you can sleep decently with it there won't be any chance of it helping much...if ever.
Nasal congestion can cause a reduction in air flow and the machine might mistake that reduction as in the other part of the airway.
If it does then it will try to increase the pressure to fix it. It doesn't know where the flow reduction is coming from.

You are in the for Her mode....and it is especially sensitive to flow limitations and the flow limitation graph in the for Her mode is going to look "worse" than it would in the regular mode.
But to give you an idea how your FL graph compares to mine in for Her mode (and I don't have nasal congestion to confuse the machine) see mine below and this one is probably about as active as I ever see.
You need to do whatever you usually do for allergy symptoms if you had much nasal congestion going on last night.
You need to be able to look at your data and know for sure that the nose was open and clear and no nasal mucosa issues were clouding the results of the FL graph.

[canyouhearmeaya]

If you share images of your reports again review this thread.
viewtopic/t158560/How-to-post-images-for-review.html
You can get all that is needed on one image including the flow limitation graph.

The only thing exciting on the report is the flow limitation graph and some of that might have been related to the allergy flare up and nasal congestion.

Since you didn't have very many apnea events on the sleep study you aren't going to see much go on with these reports.
Remember I told you that you would have to go more by subjective feelings than by numbers because your numbers aren't going to tell you much.

No need to change the settings. For now your primary job is to get where you can sleep decently with the machine.
Until you can sleep decently with it there won't be any chance of it helping much...if ever.
Nasal congestion can cause a reduction in air flow and the machine might mistake that reduction as in the other part of the airway.
If it does then it will try to increase the pressure to fix it. It doesn't know where the flow reduction is coming from.

You are in the for Her mode....and it is especially sensitive to flow limitations and the flow limitation graph in the for Her mode is going to look "worse" than it would in the regular mode.
But to give you an idea how your FL graph compares to mine in for Her mode (and I don't have nasal congestion to confuse the machine) see mine below and this one is probably about as active as I ever see.
You need to do whatever you usually do for allergy symptoms if you had much nasal congestion going on last night.
You need to be able to look at your data and know for sure that the nose was open and clear and no nasal mucosa issues were clouding the results of the FL graph.

With regards to the central apneas, as i'm using nasal pillows, would having my mouth open causing the air to rush in my nose and out my mouth cause that? As I recall waking at some point to that feeling which wasn't nice, I'm not sure if that's when I ended up taking the mask off. Looking at the graphs it appears it was after some CA's that I then removed it.

Tonight I will try using earplugs without nytol, but will take a Benadryl prior to sleep.

The other thing I wondered was, as I spent most of my time at 7 pressure, do you think it might be worth upping the minimum from 6 upto 7 again?

[canyouhearmeaya]

Another thing I realised last night was that I think previously I'd been overinhaling with the machine.. in that, I was taking much bigger inhalations of air than I would be normally, because of the pressure coming from the machine that almost felt like I had to breathe like that, but I suspect it was too far removed from natural breathing and maybe I was almost hyperventilating. Last night I focused on taking much more gentle breaths (i think having the ear plugs and not being able to hear the machine also helped me to do that.)

I think exhaling felt better after that.. I was almost as if I was inhaling too much air before, and therefor when I was trying to exhale it was like I wasn't getting enough air out, but when I allowed my breathing to be much more gentle, then I was able to find a more natural breathing pattern..

Does that makse sense?

[ChicagoGranny]

Does that makse sense?

When you fall asleep, your body breathes gently and easily. If you can distract your mind from breathing while you are trying to fall asleep, your body will do the same. Remember, you breathe all day long without thinking about it. Try to do the same at night. Your autonomous nervous system will breathe properly for you.

[Pugsy]

You can try changing the minimum to 7 if you wish. There's no urgent need to but won't hurt anything.

The CAs/Centrals you see flagged????
The last 2 most likely awake breathing pauses and not real. Not sure about the other but you might want to review Jason's videos on how to zoom in and determine if the events are real or not.
All videos especially the last one
http://freecpapadvice.com/sleepyhead-free-software

An occasional central even if real is normal and no big deal. Everyone has them occasionally.
And no...not related to air leaking out the mouth unless you happen to hold your breath when doing it.
Hold your breath for 10 seconds. That's the equivalent of a 10 second central.
Now a leak might cause you to wake up and you might pause your breathing and that pause in breathing might get flagged as a central.

[Pugsy]

Remember reading that people with UARS seem to be sort of hypersensitive to the least little things???
You are over thinking the breathing thing. You need to tell the brain to chill out and shut up.

[canyouhearmeaya]

Remember reading that people with UARS seem to be sort of hypersensitive to the least little things???
You are over thinking the breathing thing. You need to tell the brain to chill out and shut up.

LOL, gimme a break, I'm too sensitive!!!

Yeah that's totally it. I'm over thinking the breathing. Focus tonight will just be to really reach that relaxed, calm state of breathing.. and I'll see if I can keep it on all night!!

That Nytol though... DAMN I feel groggy today after using that. Not fun lol

[ChicagoGranny]

Tonight I will try using earplugs without nytol, but will take a Benadryl prior to sleep.

That Nytol though... DAMN I feel groggy today after using that. Not fun lol

In the U.S. and Canada, Nytol and Benadryl have the same active ingredients - diphenhydramine. If you are in the U.K., you might want to compare the formulation there.

Diphenhydramine will put me to sleep. But like you, the grogginess the next day is very unpleasant.

[canyouhearmeaya]

Tonight I will try using earplugs without nytol, but will take a Benadryl prior to sleep.

That Nytol though... DAMN I feel groggy today after using that. Not fun lol

In the U.S. and Canada, Nytol and Benadryl have the same active ingredients - diphenhydramine. If you are in the U.K., you might want to compare the formulation there.

Diphenhydramine will put me to sleep. But like you, the grogginess the next day is very unpleasant.

Ah okay, over here it's a different formula. Here the regular benadryl contains 'Acrivastine', I find it's fairly good as an anti-histamine and doesn't cause the drowsiness etc.