Need advice

[bruskee]

Been lurking around here for a while learning as much as possible. Got my apap and been using it for the past 17 nights. The dr wanted me to have cpap with a pressure of 10 but I told him I wanted apap (thanks to advise I read here) and he wrote me up with a pressure of 6-12. I've been creeping up slowly on the low number and have been at the 11-14 for the past 3 nights with my erp at 1. I'm sleeping fine but I'm still having Ca's and Oa's and still feel the foggy head and as tired as before I started. Do you think I should bump it up more to clear the Oa's or give it time.??

Thanks for all the info you have posted here, I'd of been blind without it !

Here's last nights report.

[VictorC]

I wouldn't worry about your CAs. The number of them is quite low, and more pressure will not help with them, since they are not caused by an obstruction.

[bruskee]

Thanks, I was asking if I should bump it up to alleviate the Obstructive ?

[palerider]

Thanks, I was asking if I should bump it up to alleviate the Obstructive ?

unfortunately, when you shrink the screenshot down so it looks pretty on the forum, it becomes fairly useless for actually trying to figure out what's going on.

based on the pressure curve, (though I can't see how well it tracks with OAs) I'd say 'yes' to your question, just keep an eye on the CAs and make sure they don't start increasing more and more as the pressure is raised.

[Julie]

There's no leak rate on that graph, so can't see if you're losing air, possibly mouth breathing, so you might want to post those results.

[bruskee]

Palerider thank you, and what's the easiest way to get the correct size for the forum ? Julie there were no Leaks last night, I'll post that pic when I get home, thank you ..

[Wulfman...]

I would suggest increasing the minimum by 1 cm. and decreasing the maximum by 1 cm.


Den

.

[palerider]

Palerider thank you, and what's the easiest way to get the correct size for the forum ?

the *best* way I've found is to upload the full size screen shot (there's a guide floating around on the forum created by someone having a period of lunacy where they suggest such things as pasting into word and resizing and other bs) to imgur.com. then imgur gives you a linked bbcode string to paste into the forum here.

there's a trick with imgur that I like to do.

Code: Select all

pick the 'linked bbcode entry, and change this:
[url=http://imgur.com/1TScxYz][img]http://i.imgur.com/1TScxYz.png[/img][/url]
to this:
[url=http://imgur.com/1TScxYz.png][img]http://i.imgur.com/1TScxYzl.png[/img][/url]
(add .png after the first link, and change the second one by adding a l *before* the .png)

then you get a large thumbnail pasted in the forum here, and when you click it, you get the full res pic.

if you don't want to go to the trouble of that minor edit, then just use the 'bbcode' link, it'll post a huge pic here, and it's ugly, but people can right click on it and see the whole pic, and be able to read the numbers and such.... much better.

[Guest 2]

Thanks, I was asking if I should bump it up to alleviate the Obstructive ?

unfortunately, when you shrink the screenshot down so it looks pretty on the forum, it becomes fairly useless for actually trying to figure out what's going on.

based on the pressure curve, (though I can't see how well it tracks with OAs) I'd say 'yes' to your question, just keep an eye on the CAs and make sure they don't start increasing more and more as the pressure is raised.

You can use your Zoom feature ( control + to zoom in and control - to zoom out ) try it some time It works good !
Sleep Well

[bruskee]

Damn Palerider that's pretty sweet... Didn't get the thumbnail but better ! Thx

[palerider]

Thanks, I was asking if I should bump it up to alleviate the Obstructive ?

unfortunately, when you shrink the screenshot down so it looks pretty on the forum, it becomes fairly useless for actually trying to figure out what's going on.

You can use your Zoom feature ( control + to zoom in and control - to zoom out ) try it some time It works good !
Sleep Well

believe it or not, drive by snarker, blowing up a low res picture does NOT (no matter what you see on CSI Apneaville, "enhance and bring out detail", it just makes small fuzzy into large fuzzy.

[palerider]

Damn Palerider that's pretty sweet... Didn't get the thumbnail but better ! Thx

well, that's cuz you messed up the lower case ell in the instructions. it should have been this:



hit 'reply' to see what the differences in what you did and what I corrected it to look like (you put .1png, I put l.png inside the img tag.)

next time you post one, turn off the calendar (or hit f12 to take the screenshot) and move the mask pressure graph out of the way so that we can see event flags, flow, pressure, leak, snore, and flow limitations. I think you're either getting snoring or flow limitations (which drive the pressure up rapidly) when you're under around 12cm.

[cathyf]

Looking at the pressure graph, it doesn't look like the machine wants to go up that high. On an auto pap, the upper pressure is about preventing the machine from going up there if it wants to, because the high pressure is causing you some problem. If the machine doesn't want to go there, it doesn't really matter what your upper pressure is. One of the reasons for limiting your machine is that higher pressures can cause centrals, and looking at that one graph you have some centrals at pressure peaks. But that could be a coincidence, too, which you could tell by looking over lots of nights.

When you have lower pressures allowing obstructive events, and higher pressures causing centrals, then you have to set your pressures to balance out the two. Otherwise, if you are NOT having problems with high pressures, you need to get your minimum pressure high enough that when your breathing starts going south (for example, you enter REM sleep) you need to be able to work up to the higher pressure in time to keep you asleep and prevent events. And the upper pressure set so that the machine can do what it wants.

[Guest 2]

believe it or not, drive by snarker, blowing up a low res picture does NOT (no matter what you see on CSI Apneaville, "enhance and bring out detail", it just makes small fuzzy into large fuzzy.[/quote]

Wow your a little beside yourself, was only trying to help, by no means did I mean to offend you.

Snarker

[bruskee]

Ok Palerider, how's this ??? Appreciate you taking time to explain..