I'm a geek

[MaxDarkside]

I'm a geek
An OSA data freak
Some think I'm weird
At night I'm fully geared
And wave to my IR Cam when I take a leak

LOL !! (go ahead and improve that)

[Lizistired]

That's funny Max! Do you use time lapse video? I would pee myself trying to wave long enough for it to register!
OP, there are lots of geek tips and links in the threads below. I just did a forum search for infrared. Some don't apply, but most do. Look for posts by Jay Aitchsee, he started it!
But remember that sometimes, you need to just sleep and not worry about it so much.

search.php?keywords=infrared

[MaxDarkside]

That's funny Max! Do you use time lapse video? I would pee myself trying to wave long enough for it to register!

Heheehe... Yes, I do have an IR cam I fashioned and have used it a few times to see what's going on when I have my clusters of apneas. Works pretty well ! I may also use it to correlate my spikes with brief wakes.

But remember that sometimes, you need to just sleep and not worry about it so much.

There is a fine line between being well informed and being obsessed. Tread carefully ! I'm accustomed now to wearing the mask, Zeo headband and the pulse-ox each night. I have 55 nights of data now with the last 35 nights with brain waves. There's a lot of info in them squiggly things. I've only touched on tapping it so far.

[Lizistired]

I think when I record again, I will use real time video instead of time lapse. It's to hard to pinpoint awakenings in time lapse. Good for how many times I change position and sleep on my back though.

[MaxDarkside]

When I used the Flix thing, I set it to like 5 seconds per frame, which is good for positions. I think 1 frame/sec, or continuous, is better for "wakes", but a bit much in compute resources and length. I don't make the movie with Flix, just looked at the frame captures on disk in the times of interest. BTW, I've had that Flix thing crash my computer from going over-temperature @ 5 secs. per frame. I don't know why, but I'm thinking it isn't well written inside.

[DreamDiver]

... So, the data indicate to me that I may be worse than that sleep study lead the doc to believe 4 years ago. ... Would appreciate any inputs on the self sleep test outlined above. ...

Tom,

First -- are you sleeping any better with the mask on? That's the real test. Do you feel better in the morning when you wake up?

Second -- we're (most of us) not doctors. So we can't really tell you what to do, other than to visit with a sleep doctor and get a professional opinion.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's see some graphs. Any apneas? Any hypopneas?
It would be nice if you could at least share some data, for instance, in the statistics pane, choose as many days as you have so far and give us a snap shot of AHI, Leak 95th percentile, and Pressure 95th percentile. (See circled numbers in red in image below.)

For instance, my 95th percentile Pressure for the last month is 11.3. From this, I can be fairly certain that a start pressure of 4 or even 6 is too low. I'd be better off starting somewhere around min pressure at 10. My max pressure is averaging 11.6, so I can be fairly certain I should put my max pressure just above that, say 12. From there, I can tweak my settings to fit my needs best. But that's me. Your needs may be entirely different. After years of geek tweeking, I've got my machine dialed to 10.4 min and 11.8 max pressure settings. This gives me the fewest apneas with this machine at this altitude.

My 95th percentile Leak (AKA 'Large Leak) is about 2.4. Meh. It's not bad. The median is 0.0, so I'm satisfied. If the 95th percentile were up around 10 or 12, I'd start thinking about reasons why my mask or mouth is leaking. And leaking is more important than other data. If you're really large leaking (anything above 23 to 25, you're not getting therapy. Any data is not trustworthy until large leaks are under control.

Looking forward to some data. (Also, please fill out your equipment profile. It may help others help you.)

[rocklin]

]
And wave to my IR Cam when I take a leak

And when it's Tuesday, and your wife makes the big move?

Does that IR Cam just keep on grinding?

Uh, do you have a website?

[tomhole]

Data. We have data. Last night, I tried the pressure setting at 4 in CPAP mode. AHI increased a little but not like I thought it might. What did happen was the snoring was bad with the pressure set at 4 and I did not get any real sleep. Kindof like I felt when I did not use any CPAP. With the pressure at a constant 4, I had no leakage at all. With it set 8-20 the mask leaks more. My question: does it leak too much?

Let me know if the images show up. Not sure if pbase allows external links.

29 Feb:





02 Mar:

[Pugsy]

I only see one image at the moment. Feb 28 second image.
ResMed's line in the sand is 24 L/min leak. You meet or exceed that number briefly about 3 times. Not prolonged amount of time though. An overall very decent leak line. I suspect some minor mask movement caused those spikes.

[tomhole]

Put in different links. Let me know if these show up now.

[Pugsy]

I see the other images now.

The second leak line is darn near perfect. The first leak line image...the one I commented on is not perfect but it is far from being a horrible leak night. The spikes to 24 L/min and the one to near 45 L/min are rather short lived. The bulk of your night is quite acceptable on paper.
Now if your sleep was disturbed due to leaks then you would of course try harder to limit the leaks because even if leaks are tiny...if they wake us up we want to limit them so that we don't wake up often. Anything that causes us to wake often is unwanted.

[tomhole]

Had a good night last night. AHI of .5, miminal leaks, good night's sleep.

The sole reason I went down this CPAP road was to get rid of my snoring. Last night, for the first time in 25 years, I didn't snore at all. What I didn't expect, but hoped for, was to sleep better.

Now I think I need to work on the mask. I have the full face mask working properly, but to keep the leaks down, it's pretty tight. I would like to experiment with more masks, but my situation is self funded. No insurance or DME's. I have the 30 day return coverage on my current mask. Would like to try pillows as I don't seem to be mouth breathing. Wonder how I could do that and not break the bank?

Tom

[-tim]

If it works, give it 3 days. Make sure you have a trend.

There are a few people around who have spare stuff. Either masks they don't need or stuff that came in the box. If I used the nasal stuff routinely, I would have two sizes of stuff that I would never use. While typing away in my father's study, I can see at least two surplus devices that have been cast away as dysfunctional. Let people on the list know where you are. Most will only send stuff their their own country but some times people like the excitement of sending stuff far away.

[Lizistired]

Check this link.
http://www.cpaplibrary.com/mask-trials.html