Newbie on how long it takes to get rid fatigue and claustrophobic feeling from full face mask

[Findjcr]

No laptop but desktop and probably would need to buy card reader, any ideas on where, brand, etc? And is Oscar fee?

Yes ramp is off and min pressure is 7, max 12. For several nights after raising the minimum from 4 to eventually 7 I was comfortable but for some reason I had harder time breathing from start last night at 7. I’m not sure the pressure was the issue but it sure felt that way, it clearly was on 7, but as indicated too I was a bit stuffier last night.
Prior to using cpap, and with a severely deviated septum, I’d have some nights where I could breathe ok ( not good) and a very few where no nasal breathing at all and I’d mouth breathe. I’m confident I probably did that most nights but some I was at least able to start breathing through my nose. So last night I was partially nose breathing but mostly mouth breathing and got mentally concerned from start that I wasn’t feeling comfortable w my breathing which led to repeated bouts of wanting to bail out if using the mask, I honestly do t know how I made it to almost an hour, completely awake the whole time, ….so now I’m anxious obviously about tonight but I’ll try.
My entire mission since I “just” allegedly have mild osa is to conquer daytime fatigue.
It’s certainly possible, whereas my 7 interruptions per hour in formal sleep test, is contributing to that fatigue that low vitamin D , as example, and my sotalol medicine and others are causing much of it too.
I’m mostly healthy and walk 4 miles a day and reasonably fit, 186 pounds at 6 1, so I’m trying to drop 15 pounds to see if that helps too.

[Findjcr]

So I didn’t use cpap last night and slept better than I have in two weeks on cpap so honestly I’m debating just stopping period. My ahi was worse using cpap than my sleep test which was only 7. My cpap ahi was 11.6 I think. I realize many of you will tell me it could take up to 6 months but I’m not sure that I have that patience of the ability to withstand the claustrophobia for that long. I spent near $1000 for this thing and I’m results oriented, in my mind it either improves my numbers or it doesn’t so anyways maybe I’ll wait a bit and change my mind but for now I’m not impressed….
But as I said my case is mild and many online seem to indicate you don’t really need to treat that level but my daytime sleepiness was the issue and could be other causes… well see

[ozij]

I’m results oriented, in my mind it either improves my numbers or it doesn’t

You will know nothing of what the CPAP does to your "numbers" if you don't use OSCAR.
A sleep study only counts evens when you're asleep.
A CPAP machine has no idea if you're asleep or not and will count breathing irregularities that happen when you're awake.

With OSCAR you have a chance of figuring out which events should be counted, and which not.
However, you started this thread with the following sentence:

I’m not to cpap, resmed airsense 10,

A slip of the tongue?

But as I said my case is mild

Only if you ignore RDI (respiratory distress index) and RERA (respiratory effort related arousals) and your oxygenation which dropped to 90%.

[Findjcr]

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not sure if this works? my original sleep study results:

zero desaturations
RDI: NREM: 11.9, REM: 5.2, RDI TST: 11.6

RERA: NREM: 45 REM: 1, TST: 46 MAx duration 57.4, Index: 11.6
no apneas or hypopneas

tried to copy reports but not sure did it correctly

Any insights from this data appreciated.

[Miss Emerita]

About Oscar: it is free. You do need an SD card in the SD slot in your machine. Get one that is 32 GB or less and the right dimension to fit in the slot. Make sure it is unlocked before you put it in your machine. Any reader that has a slot of the right size will work fine. You'll find them for under $15 on Amazon. For both card and reader, the brand doesn't matter.

[Findjcr]

Miss Emerita
Thanks. Any insights from my sleep study you can share?

[ozij]

Look at the charts.
See the way your snores and RERA coincide - happening within the same time period.
See the way your arousals coincide with the snores.
Notice that they discount desaturation events that happen between 90 and 100.
In other studies, you find that any drop of 3% in SPO2 counted as a desaturation event.

You have an arousal index of 21.4.
According to their counting,

• 30/85 of those are respiratory.
• 21/85 are arousals with Leg Movements
• 33/85 are non-specific.

I know that sometimes LM's are the body's response to smaller desaturations, kicking you out of sleep and thus avoiding deeper desaturation.

Has anyone discussed thost numbers with you? Have you discussed them with anyone?

[Findjcr]

Ozij

Thanks SO much for taking the time to give me your thoughts. Nope, NOBODY including my sleep Dr or respiratory therapist has shared squat about my results, all I got was you have mild case of sleep apnea and had 7 interruptions per hour. I think these people think I’m (we’re) too stupid to understand, very condescending to me. The res. Therapist was livid I spoke to cpap.com and changed settings to epr 3 and moved up my min pressure to 7.
I just gained more insight from your writing in 5 minutes than all of them THIS SHOUKD NIT BE THE CASE.
that said, I think it’s part arrogance and part they do t get compensation to educate us and this stuff is FAR more complicated than I thought.
PLEASE, I welcome others input. Thanks again

[Miss Emerita]

You got GREAT observations from Ozij. I'm so sorry you got so little from your doctor and RT.

Once you get Oscar up and running, we can see what's going on and offer further observations and maybe some further advice. Stay in this same thread so all the information will be in one place.

[Findjcr]

Latest update
Sleep Dr wants me to try a constant pressure of 10., my old pressure was 7-12, but the last night of usage I had a bad stuffy nasal night and only made it 54 minutes with 40+ events and disconnected. I have no idea if this constant thing will work or if I can adjust to 10 or not but he wants me to try for a week and then capture my data.
Thoughts about thus strategy??

[ozij]

Thoughts about thus strategy??

Once you get Oscar up and running, we can see what's going on and offer further observations and maybe some further advice.

[Findjcr]

We’ll, I tried to do the Physician ordered constant pressure of 10 last night and couldn’t. That’s far worse than starting at 7. The reason he adjusted to try this is because I had a horrible night the last night I used cpap at 7-12 range after almost 10 days of relative success getting me to 7-8 hours but my stuffy nose resorted to open mouth very early that night and I couldn’t tolerate it .
So I’m thinking 10 days of success w cpap and then a bad night might be better…

[Miss Emerita]

We'd be so happy to try offering some advice once you can post an Oscar chart or two. Are you making progress on that front?

[Findjcr]

Haven’t looked into Oscar yet, I’m not the best technologist so for the near term I’m relying on the Dr software analysis but as of this writing it just appears to me as multiple guesswork- wish I wasn’t so skeptical but I’m fairly analytical and expect results and I do t line people telling me well it has to get worse efore it gets better or gee let’s try this idea then without explaining why.
With as many sleep apnea cpap users as there are why do users have to rely on their own “Oscar”?? Geesh, isn’t that why we pay the sleep Dr and therapist. We’re certainly not paying them to guess?

What exactly does Oscar do? How much is it? Where do I look into it for review? How easy is it to install?

[Miss Emerita]

It is free. The link is in my signature block. I’m not very savvy about tech, but I managed to install and use it. If you ran into problems getting started with Oscar, we could probably help you.