Sleep study costs and expectations

[Sluggish]

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[JennySawyer]

It was the polysomnography aka sleep study that revealed my need for a CPAP machine, I had it for no charge ie free on the UK National Health Service, ditto the equipment. Whilst I was having the wires attached to my head I felt nauseous & dizzy & it turned out that my blood pressure had dropped to too low & I had to take a break before they resumed wiring me up.

[ajack]

And maybe consider what you can do (e.g. full face mask) re your leaks.

what julie said. I'd get a FFM to sort out the leaks/mouth leaks.
I think your min 10 pressure looked ok. 11 might have been worth a shot. 12 is good and the machine is running in what some would set as a fixed pressure. The CA are ok at under 3 an hour and should settle in 3 months. A reason for a sleep study would be for PLMD and a computer cam will record your sleep and twitching. I'd sort the cheap stuff out first, before I spent what they want to charge in the US.,

[Sluggish]

The thought of starting all over at square one after struggling for over a year is enough to drive me insane.

Considering I do have the occasional “good” night, Is the mask really the issue? Don’t FFM’s leak too?

What’s frustrating is that I had better charts (and better sleep) about 6 months ago with the same setup. I felt like things were finally starting to normalize. Nights were closer to 8hrs and AHI was always less than 2 and sometimes less than 1. Then for no apparent reason things started to get bad again. If the leaks don’t wake me up it seems like I should be getting more sleep than 5-6 hrs.

[Pugsy]

Are those centrals you are seeing real asleep centrals or SWJ centrals???

[Sluggish]

I’m embarrassed I don’t know the difference really. I don’t really know how to read the charts other than recognizing leaks. I just shoot for a nice flat line and no leaks. And low ahi number.

I’ve got to leave for work now but I intend to do some googling about Central Apneas (and SWJ?) when I get home. Also, clearly I need to revisit the sleepyhead website and watch the vids again.

[Pugsy]

Start here and watch the videos

http://freecpapadvice.com/sleepyhead-free-software

It will give you a huge heads up on figuring out asleep vs awake flagged events.

To fix a problem you first have to identify the problem.

My best guess as to why things got worse with the centrals....and it's just a guess because there is so much I don't know here...
your sleep quality has worsened for some reason or other and there's a good chance that most of those centrals aren't even asleep centrals and aren't a problem but instead a symptom of a different problem...poor sleep.
Now figuring out why the poor sleep....million dollar question and if I had a dime for every time I could accurately come up with an answer I would be a millionaire. Poor sleep quality affects cpap users and non cpap users to the tune of a billion dollar industry.

[Miss Emerita]

I wonder whether the leaks are a big part of the problem, even though you’re not aware of them waking you up. They could be kicking you out of deep sleep or REM sleep into a less beneficial sleep stage, for example. Or you could be having mini-wakeups due to leakage that you don’t remember, again with disruption of your sleep architecture. Without adequate deep and REM sleep, we can’t function well when we’re awake.

Things to try, if you want to stick with the P10: different mouth tape, different bed pillow, new replacement headgear (if you’ve been using the same one for a while), different size nose pillows, different hose management.

One other thought. Given that your sleep schedule has you going to bed quite late, are you able to keep your room dark into the morning? If not, maybe try a sleep mask over your eyes?

I really hope something will work for you. Good luck.

[Sluggish]

Thanks for the input everyone.

The pillow has been a struggle since day one.
I usually fall asleep on my back and in this position I prefer very little lift or even no pillow at all.

The problem is that at some point I roll onto my side and at that point i have no pillow supporting my head.

I think I’ve been through a dozen pillows. I have no idea what to do. 6 months ago I felt like I was finally crawling out of this dark hole. Now it seems I have fallen right back in.

[ajack]

I don't think it looks like a sealing problem, by the shape of the leak chart, but it could be. Any mouth breathing with the nasal, would be fixed with a FFM. Try it and see. You need a FFM when you get a cold anyways. You may find for you that may help, given what you have said. Is to try a $10 cervical foam collar. It will also help support your head when you sleep on your side without a pillow.

[Sluggish]

Thanks.
I am already using a foam collar from CVS that I forgot to mention. I tend to agree that the leaks are probably not from the seal on the nasal cushions but rather from my mouth. I have noticed that air can tend to escape wherever there is a wrinkle in the tape. It seems no matter how smooth and flat I apply the tape, wrinkles occur as I turn on my side and my face becomes a bit smashed and the tape relaxes a bit.
I have noticed on occasion that I wake up with a dry mouth even though it is taped. Is this possible without any leaks? Or is the dry mouth a dead giveaway 100% that I am having leaks and air escaping in the wrinkles under the tape?

Also, are there any FFM’s with diffused exhaust like the p10? I have not (yet) found a single mask I can wear that doesn’t have a diffused exhaust. I have no idea how people just tolerate the massive amounts of air blowing back on them or furthermore how people train themselves to sleep on their back to avoid the exhaust altogether.

[djams]

Also, are there any FFM’s with diffused exhaust like the p10? I have not (yet) found a single mask I can wear that doesn’t have a diffused exhaust. I have no idea how people just tolerate the massive amounts of air blowing back on them or furthermore how people train themselves to sleep on their back to avoid the exhaust altogether.

Resmed's F20 and F30 masks have very good diffused venting in the elbow that attaches to the hose. Couldn't say whether or not it's same as the P10, but it's good.

I had the "quiet air" elbow from day one and had no idea how spoiled I was - until I tried out a Swift/FX pillow mask.

I don't experience dry mouth if I have no mouth breathing. It was the same with a FFM.

[Pugsy]

I have heard of people saying that they experience dry mouth even when they tape their mouths shut and the tape is solidly secure in the mornings so there is absolutely no chance of mouth breathing happening to be the cause of the dry mouth.
If that's the case then obviously some other reason is the culprit...and there's a long list of culprits for dry mouth besides mouth breathing.
Full face masks aren't guaranteed to cure the dry mouth issues either so if that is the only reason someone wants to use a full face mask...it may or may not fix that issue. We have a bunch of FFM users here who also use some sort of oral moistening agent.

Also if your tape is for sure secure and you see some leaks...then obviously not from mouth breathing and have to be from mask movement of some sort.
I realized this a couple of times...once when I needed to be 100% sure what was causing some excessive leak I was seeing with a nasal mask....so I taped my lips shut and it was solidly in place the next morning but the leaks were still fairly substantial...mask movement leaks. And they look just like mouth breathing leaks on the leak graph so there is no way to tell just by looking at the leak line with any certainty what is causing leaks when the mouth isn't solidly taped.
The other time was with the Bleep...it simply won't leak at the nostril level if the adhesive is tightly stuck and trust me..you know it when it leaks because of adhesive failure. No doubt about it. So when I do see some leaks I know it has to be mouth opening leaks. Funny thing is these leaks when I do see them are rarely very large...most of the time don't even reach large leak territory.....so those really big leaks I used to blame on mouth breathing may not have all been from mouth breathing and very likely were mask movement leaks. With the P10...the back strap sliding up causing the pillows to break seal or maybe headgear too stretched out causing same movement.

[Sluggish]

One of the most appealing parts of the sleep study for me was the idea of the video monitoring. It seems this would answer many of the questions about what’s happening in my sleep.
Has anyone been successful video-recording an entire nights sleep with an iPhone or GoPro or whatever? I would imagine the issue for iPhones would be with storage capacity. Maybe a camera that sends data to the cloud for storage or something? Or maybe just a large capacity memory card and camera plugged in to power so the battery doesn’t die? Surely someone has done this, yes?

[Dan_McD]

Most of you people know a lot better than I do since I'm just coming up on 6 months the 21st. I wear a full face quattro and almost all my leaks come from movement. I'm a twister turner and have always moved around a lot during sleep. The other reason the quattro leaks is the cushion goes mushy, both the inner and outer levels or seals of the cushion.... and that may be because I move so much. Most of my dry mouth or sore throat is due to me turning the humidity level too low. I think.