I take my mask off 1-2 hours in consistently, here's oscar

[kdt15]

My first use of oscar, hoping someone can help with settings and proper sharing of screenshots. Do I typically just post daily views? Also, i am in california. There was an option during profile setup to tick or untick Daylight Savings time zones. Should i check that? i went to sleep around 1am so im not sure why the data starts at 3am.


edit:updated image


im not sure what data is important or what i should be paying attention to, so any help would be great

[Pugsy]

See here for the formatting of the graphs.
viewtopic/t158560/How-to-post-images-for-review.html

Checking the daylight savings time thing in your software won't likely fix the timing issue. It never has seemed to work properly.
Instead just change the clock setting in your machine itself.

Hide the calendar and turn off the pie chart (Preference/Appearance tab and remove check mark for show pie chart).
This allowed the more useful statistics to move up into view on the left.

No need to include the mask pressure graph with your machine. It's not particular helpful. Turn it off and allow the flow limitation graph to move up into view. It's more useful.
Include the snore graph if it is very active...if it isn't you can omit it.

If this were my report....I would just increase the minimum from 4 to 6 cm and that's all I would do.
It's really a pretty good report and those centrals/CAs are probably awake breathing false positives and I would just ignore them.
We can't fix them with pressure increases anyway.

[kdt15]

thanks, so dailies are better than overview/summaries?

[Pugsy]

There are times when the big picture with overviews and just summaries are useful but I don't go there first.
I prefer typical detailed nightly report and then sometimes ask for overviews depending on what I am wondering about. It's rare that I need anything but the detailed data.
For me the overview stuff doesn't mean much if I first don't know what is going on in more detail each night.

[kdt15]

i was able to fix the time after deleting data after removing my sd card first (i presume that protects my past data).

i did encounter a new option: smartstart - off. is it typically better to have that on? i did read people had trouble with it after taking mask off or sometihng

curious if any other options in clinical menu are worth adjusting, like Essentials - On/Plus, EPR level 3, start pressure 4, response: soft

regarding hiding oscar graphs: i seem to be able to pin/unpin and drag, but cant find how to hide a specific chart. do you mean just drag it out of view to the bottom?

and you mentioned increasing from 4-6cm, i initially thought you meant Y axis but that doesnt make much sense. do you mean min or start pressure on my machine? wasnt aware it was using cm as units :p

[kdt15]

Adjusted my oscar settings, does this look better?

Curious why there was a bunch of strange flowrate and AHI events around 4:20 after being pretty stable

[deleted img]

[Pugsy]

All machines use pressure measured in cm to water or h2O. I just shorten it to cm. Were you thinking the measurement was psi??? It isn't...in fact it's nowhere near what psi is.

Yes...I meant change the minimum starting pressure to 6 cm. Right now it is set to 4 cm and the max is set to 20 cm which is really nothing more than the factory defaults.
When you use the 4 cm starting point you don't really get any benefit from the EPR feature until you are up around 6 cm and you are staying up around 6 cm most of the time anyway. Might as well just start up there and it might be more comfortable for you.

SmartStart....just starts the machine when you take a couple of breaths and you don't have to push the button. I rather like it myself.
With it on the machine will also turn itself off if you remove the mask. Takes maybe 10 to 15 seconds.
Now with some masks at some pressures it doesn't work so great because the machine doesn't feel enough change in resistance to know the human is no longer attached but for the most part it works as it is supposed to.
SmartStart use....entirely personal preference. I like it myself.

How to turn off unwanted graphs from the viewing area...look on the right lower corner of OSCAR/SleepyHead...see where it says "event flags"....clicking on each one just hides the graph...clicking on it changes it from green to red. Red means hidden. To unhide just click on it again to change to green.
You can click and drag the order of the graphs but I just hide the ones I don't bother to look at. It's easier for me.

Essentials...just relates to what data you can see on the Sleep Report on the machine LCD screen. With it set to On you get hours of use...with it set to Plus you get hours of use, pressure numbers and leak numbers as well as AHI. Plus setting gives more details if you are looking at the LCD screen. Has nothing to do with what gets written to the SD card or anything like that.

EPR is exhale pressure relief....personal preference as to if you want to use it or not or at whatever setting if you want to use it.
Drops during exhale but when using the 4 cm starting point it doesn't/can't drop any because 4 cm is as low as it will go anyway.
1 cm drop per setting. 3 being the most drop available.

[Pugsy]

Adjusted my oscar settings, does this look better?

The graphs are fine but don't forget we need the stuff on the left side as well. The graphs without the data on the left aren't very much help.

Curious why there was a bunch of strange flowrate and AHI events around 4:20 after being pretty stable

I am betting you were awake when all that happened. Awake breathing is very irregular when compared to asleep breathing but since the machine doesn't measure sleep status it just flags the irregular breathing as some sort of apnea event.
We ignore awake breathing because nothing matters that might be flagged unless we are asleep.

If you want to learn how to distinguish awake breathing from asleep breathing watch all the videos here
http://freecpapadvice.com/sleepyhead-free-software

[palerider]

Adjusted my oscar settings, does this look better?

Does it look like the example? No? then .
No.

Try again: http://cpaptalk.com/wiki/index.php/Oscar:organize

[kdt15]

awesome, thanks for the help. here's the updated image.



is there anything you typically look for when you look at other's data/graphs? i want to slowly learn what main issues to discern over time.

to clarify, min pressure and start pressure were both 4cm. i moved it to both 6cm. is that the recommendation, or only adjust min to 6?

is it normal to have that awake breathing without realizing im awake? i spent 30mins in that type of breathing but i only recall waking to take off the mask and then going back to sleep.

also in the 3rd video from http://freecpapadvice.com/sleepyhead-free-software, the speaker mentions to turn off EPR or it ends up acting like a bipap with a 3drop, which can lead to respiratory issues. is that the general recommendation (or for me) to turn it off?

[palerider]

and you mentioned increasing from 4-6cm, i initially thought you meant Y axis but that doesnt make much sense. do you mean min or start pressure on my machine? wasnt aware it was using cm as units :p

Well, it IS right there in the manual.

Operating pressure range
AutoSet, AutoSet For Her, Elite, CPAP 4 to 20 cm H2O

:p

[palerider]

awesome, thanks for the help. here's the updated image.

Closer, still doesn't look like the example.

Set min to 8.

[kdt15]

awesome, thanks for the help. here's the updated image.

Closer, still doesn't look like the example.

Set min to 8.

from the wiki example, do you mean im just missing a 6th graph (snore, which is currently empty so i left it out / didnt adjust heights to allow it to show)?

can you elaborate on why 8 is better than 6 (as pugsy suggested) since my pressure graph only peaks at 8?

[palerider]

awesome, thanks for the help. here's the updated image.

Closer, still doesn't look like the example.

Set min to 8.

from the wiki example, do you mean im just missing a 6th graph (snore, which is currently empty so i left it out / didnt adjust heights to allow it to show)?

can you elaborate on why 8 is better than 6 (as pugsy suggested) since my pressure graph only peaks at 8?

Because it stays above 6 almost the entire night, and Pugsy is more conservative about min pressure increases.

[Pugsy]

I would leave EPR alone for right now as I see no need to turn it off. We advised turning it off sometimes when we think a person is having too many central apneas (you aren't) and we try it just to see if it helps reduce the centrals or not.

As palerider says...I am much more conservative with my advice for increasing the pressure...it's just the way I am.
If I don't see an urgent need for a lot more then I don't advise a lot more and I think that someone going from a starting point of 4 cm to 6 cm is a good enough size jump in pressure and won't advise more unless there is an urgent need and the person can handle it.
Even if there is an urgent need and they just can't handle more then I suggest work up slowly.
Sometimes once a person is using a little more baseline pressure they end up not needing higher pressures anyway.

Hurts nothing to go up slowly and it's a lot easier adjusting to if/when we do go up.
Plus sometimes we get lucky and with the slightly higher baseline the machine doesn't go up as much anyway.

I don't need to see the snore graph if there's nothing to see on it.

I am fine with your last posted image.

You are going to find that with the forum members here you are very likely to get a varying opinion of just about everything...
From what they want to see on the reports to pressures to whatever.
Which one is "right"....doesn't really matter as there is often no wrong or right way to do something.
Whichever works out for you ends up being the "right" way to do something.
Palerider likes to see a nice level pressure line for the most part as he has experience where he feels he sleeps better when the pressures are more stable.
Me....I see wide variations in pressure almost every night and never know it and it never has affected my sleep quality...confirmed in the past by using much higher minimums to keep pressure changes to a minimum...and didn't do a damn thing to improve my sleep.

What you get here is advice based or either our own personal experience or the experience we gained based on helping others.
We don't always agree on that advice... I am very conservative with my ideas...others not so conservative. Sometimes I am probably more correct and sometimes they probably more correct in what to do.
You get to choose which seems to meet your needs the best.....or heck, even try both ways to see what works out best for you.