Brand new to ASV for Central Apnea. Need encouragement

[palerider]

1) Backup Breathing Rate -

Not applicable on a Resmed.

2) Look into the parameters that control the rapidity of the transition between exhale and inhale. I believe that there is a way to slow it down a little to increase the comfort level. For some patients who are a little slow at the end of and exhale, the machine kicks in that starts increasing the pressure for inhale before the patient has completed their exhale cycle. From reading discussions about the differences between the PR and ResMed algorithms, it seems as if this phenomenon is more common on ResMed than PR machines.

Not applicable.

Resmeds are much more automatic and advanced compared to Respironics.

[TheOtherApnea]

Thanks again for all the advice. Still working on sleeping beyond 2 hours a night with ASV.Does anyone have an ASV success story such as how great they eventually felt, or how they were eventually able to sleep through the night? I don’t want my husband to give up. This is too important, and I know success won’t happen overnight. Downloaded sleepyhead, just need to get the card in there so I can show you guys the numbers.

[TheOtherApnea]

Or any helpful threads of people who do well with Adaptive Servo Ventilation. Thanks!!!

[Weagle]

I'm in the same boat. I started my journey with Complex Sleep Apnea (mix of mostly Central Apneas and a few Obstructive Apneas) earlier this year with two sleep studies. I received my ResMed AirCurve 10 ASV on October 27th and have been fighting similar battles. My main issue is keeping a good seal when the machine increases pressures in the middle of the night during my Central Apnea events. I still wake up after about 4 hours feeling bloated from the higher pressures.

The one thing that helped me at the beginning of all this was the ramp feature. I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling the pressure and swallowing the forced air. I would turn the machine off, then back on again restarting the ramp. This would allow me to fall back to sleep relatively quickly with the lower pressures. After a short time, the higher pressures stopped waking me up. When I started, I had the ramp set at the max of 45 minutes. As time went by and I wasn't being awoken from the pressures alone, I lowered the ramp to 30 minutes and now I'm down to a 20 minute ramp up time.

I looked at my data on SleepyHead and noticed that I was having a few rare Apnea's (1 a week) during the ramp time which is why I've been slowly weening myself to a shorter and short ramp time.

Another thing is to consider getting a dedicated Sleep Doctor, not trusting the DME for everything. The DME is a great resource for testing masks and other supplies, but when it comes to the prescriptions the Dr's recommend it's best to deal with a qualified physician. I'm in the middle of transferring my care from my ENT to a dedicated Sleep Dr.

My journey started with my Primary Care, who referred me to an ENT and Allergy specialist for my sleep issues. The ENT then sent me to a hospital to get a couple of Sleep Studies done. The Dr at the hospital made recommendations and my ENT prescribed me with the ASV machine and setting recommended. The DME filled the prescription and provided the equipment. Now I'm having issues and the DME won't make changes without the prescribing Dr's authorization. The ENT (prescribing Dr) won't make changes because it's not his specialty. So now I'm going through the new-patient process with an actual Pulmonary and Sleep Associates Center here in Denver in hopes of transferring care to a Dr who's qualified to work through my issues.

I'm not sure if any of this will help, but I figured I'd let you know that you are not the only one going through this process. I'll be praying for you. Maybe something I shared will give you an idea or two of things to try.