Sleepyhead Data to increase pressure

[youngcd12]

Hi everyone,

I'm on my 4th week of CPAP therapy. Trying to figure out my pressure range. Started at 7-13, then when 8-14 and last night bumped it to 9-14 and I had my best night yet. Coincidence? Would you guys mind looking at my Sleepyhead data from last night and telling me what you see? I'm trying to get my AHI down and this was my best night. The second image shows that each time I've increase the minimum pressure, I've gotten better AHI. I understand that the goal is to find the minimum pressure that prevents the airway from closing.

Screen Shot 2018-01-02 at 8.06.02 PM by CORD YOUNG, on Flickr
Screen Shot 2018-01-02 at 8.06.14 PM by CORD YOUNG, on Flickr

Thanks in advance!

[TedVPAP]

You are doing great. A little more minimum pressure and you will be doing even better. I would go to 10.

[ajack]

yes, dreamstation are slow to respond, so I would keep increasing min pressure towards the 95% too. I'd also lift max to 16 because your 95% and max is the same number, you want the max set at least 2cm above 95%.

[youngcd12]

Thanks for the input! I had another decent night at the higher minimum pressure. 2.7 AHI which is my second best night. This is excting, I may end up bumping up to 10 and see what happens! Appreciate the help!

[youngcd12]

Update...increased to 9.5-14.5 pressure (.5 increase on the minimum and maximum) and achieved my by far best night of AHI. 1.7!

Super excited about this. My 90% pressure was 12.6 or something, so according to what you guys have said I could still probably use a small bump in the minimum pressure? Maybe I'll try 10-15?

[TedVPAP]

Update...increased to 9.5-14.5 pressure (.5 increase on the minimum and maximum) and achieved my by far best night of AHI. 1.7!

Super excited about this. My 90% pressure was 12.6 or something, so according to what you guys have said I could still probably use a small bump in the minimum pressure? Maybe I'll try 10-15?

It looks like you are getting close to where you need to be. Pick a min pressure (either 9.5 or 10) and use it for a week or so. Then post a chart. I like to zoom in on each event and ask myself if it looks like that event would have a series impact on your sleep or not. Some hypops or apneas look like a small disturbance and others look clearly like obvious struggle.

[ChicagoGranny]

youngcd12

Some general rules:

1) If your pressure line is spending very little time at the minimum, increasing the minimum will likely improve your therapy.

2) If your pressure line is spending a lot of time at the minimum, you might decrease the pressure and experience more comfortable therapy.

These rules apply to your machine, but they work a little better with ResMed machines because the ResMed algorithm responds faster with pressure changes.

[youngcd12]

Update! I've been getting into the 1.5-1.7 AHI Range with 10.5-16.6 pressure.

Was wondering if I should still bump up the minimum. I know of an uncle of my friend who has severe sleep apnea but with CPAP can get into the 0.2-0.5 AHI range, so I really want to get my AHI as low as possible! Any advice based on my screenshots would be so greatly appreciated! THANK YOU ALL!

Screen Shot 2018-01-17 at 5.36.04 AM by CORD YOUNG
Screen Shot 2018-01-17 at 5.35.29 AM by CORD YOUNG

[LSAT]

If you are sleeping well, I would leave everything alone...It's unrealistic to think you can eliminate all events every night. See where you are in a month or so with the settings you have.

[ajack]

It's up to you, it is fine as it is, or you could try 11. You are still in the lower pressure range.
Philips are slower to respond than resmed, so they do like to be close to the 90/95%. They send the saw tooth spike that you see to investigate a pressure rise and then return down. The machine ignored several OA and H, I would increase it, just no need to go above the 95% or you might as well use fixed pressure, not that there is anything wrong with that, you may like it and it may give better results.

[youngcd12]

Thanks guys! Do my leaks look ok?

[Pugsy]

Numbers don't always tell the whole story and don't always mean that everything is ideal.
How are you sleeping and feeling? That should always be part of the evaluation.

I was once about where you are and I was sleeping and feeling quite decent but I wondered if things would be better with more pressure so I systematically increased the minimum pressure (was doing well with 10 cm) 0.5 cm for a week at a time until I reached 13 cm minimum. So a 6 week experiment. At the end of the 6 weeks the AHI was essentially unchanged and I wasn't necessarily feeling any better or sleeping any better.
I decided to end the experiment because nothing really changed for the "better" number wise and I couldn't really tell any difference in sleep quality or how I felt.

So up to you..if you are curious by all means try a little more minimum but there is no urgent need to do that based on the data shown.
Now if you are feeling and sleeping like crap...worth trying a little more minimum to see if it helps or not.

Your leak management is to die for good. No worries there unless some sort of teeny tiny leak is waking you up and if that is happening we of course want to eliminate anything that disturbs our sleep no matter how tiny.
Your machine top line leak graph is the total leak number which is the mask's expected vent/intentional leak plus any excess leak.
Very little movement there and what movement that is seen seem to be from when the machine is increasing the pressure a bit.
More pressure means more vent rate so the total leak will move around a bit.

[TedVPAP]

Leak rate is nice and low.
I would increase the minimum a little. You are in the "fine tuning" area so it is impossible to predict if a lower AHI will result in better sleep. There is no harm in trying.

[ajack]

Even with numbers of 0.0 , you can still have a bad sleep and the problem lays elsewhere. I think it's a good idea to get the AHI sorted as best you can and then see what is left.

[mroe66]

https://imgur.com/a/Y4iB2g5
[url][/https://imgur.com/a/Y4iB2g5url]
Can someone tell me if in need to increase my maximum pressure. I am at 13 and the graph is bouncing at the ceiling of then graph