New(ish) user, graphs attached for opinions!

[gilbetron]

I had posted in another thread about the pressure feeling less in the morning, I finally got an sd card and recorded the past couple of nights, I've attached the screenshots. If anyone feels like interpreting some stuff, it's much appreciated! The second one I woke up at 4am, and I see an event then, and that always gets my heart racing, which would probably explain why it feels like the pressure isn't high, maybe.

The "Clear Airway" - maybe that's from leaks?

[Miss Emerita]

Nice charts! Yes, in the top graph you had an obstructive apnea, which could certainly wake you up with a racing heart. The CAs don't have anything directly to do with the leaks. They are pauses between breaths of 10 seconds or longer, and if you zoom in you may see something like what you see in the attachment. From left to right: sleep breathing, arousal breathing, CA, resumption of sleep breathing. The arousal breathing is deep enough to reduce your drive to breathe for a little bit. Conceivably the leaks were fully or partially waking you up, so they might have contributed to arousals.

How are you feeling during the day?

CA after arousal.png

[Julie]

Any reason your max setting's at 16 vs more common 20 (or e.g. 18)?

Don't worry about clear airways (or 'centrals') unless you have a LOT all night, not a few as you're dropping off or just awakening (and/or just 1-2 overnite), which are normal.

You did get a bit of leakiness in the last one, but you'll need to sort out if it was your mask - and just a one-off nite, or position.

BTW, better to stay in one thread for all Q's so we can keep track, maybe connect dots you haven't, even if they're different Q's.

[gilbetron]

Nice charts! Yes, in the top graph you had an obstructive apnea, which could certainly wake you up with a racing heart. The CAs don't have anything directly to do with the leaks. They are pauses between breaths of 10 seconds or longer, and if you zoom in you may see something like what you see in the attachment. From left to right: sleep breathing, arousal breathing, CA, resumption of sleep breathing. The arousal breathing is deep enough to reduce your drive to breathe for a little bit. Conceivably the leaks were fully or partially waking you up, so they might have contributed to arousals.

How are you feeling during the day?

Better than before CPAP, that's for sure. I'm generally ok - but when I have one of those episodes it can take me 30-90 minutes to settle back down again, the adrenaline makes my mind go crazy!

[gilbetron]

Any reason your max setting's at 16 vs more common 20 (or e.g. 18)?

I'll try higher tonight, although since I don't seem to go above 13, does it matter if max is 20?

[Pugsy]

since I don't seem to go above 13, does it matter if max is 20?

No, doesn't really matter one way or the other if you never ever go above 13 what the max is...be it 20 or 19 or 18 or 13.5 or whatever.
Changing the max to a lower number won't change the overall algorithm dictating increases.
The machine won't go any higher than it thinks it needs to go but having it higher does let the machine go higher just in case something really weird happens to cause the machine to need to go higher.

Now sometimes we do restrict the max if the machine is hitting the max and the higher pressures is causing some sort of problem that is a worse problem than hitting the max might be a problem. Like maybe the going higher causes bad aerophagia symptoms.

The machine only goes where it thinks it has a good reason to go and if it never ever goes over 13....then the max setting becomes a moot point as long as it is higher than where the machine goes.

Now if something changes and you find yourself hitting the max often and for prolonged periods of time...then we look at why it is going higher and do we want to let it go higher.