Greetings, thanks, another noob here.

AngryQuakerIfMyRegistrationEverGoesThru wrote:
http://imgur[dot]com/Ogjblyz <-- Friday night

http://imgur[dot]com/gGgONHM <-- Saturday night

Here are another couple images for reference, analysis, speculation, etc.


-Russ

Here you go!

http://imgur.com/Ogjblyz

http://imgur.com/gGgONHM

The latest:

http://imgur[dot]com/QPX8JnF

I tried the generic Afrin night before last. Just one easy little spritz up each nostril. Never again. I'm still sniffling and sneezing. I hate decongestants, and man oh man, do they ever hate me.

Be that as it may...last night, I skipped the Afrin and opted to stick with my trusty neti pot, and also added a heavy-duty breathe-right strip. Humidity setting back up to 3, since my nose and sinuses were irritated as all get out. I did kinda wake up once, but was able to fall right back asleep. This chart represents the best night's sleep I've had, and the best AHI for a night's sleep, since I started treatment a couple weeks ago. I am guardedly optimistic, to borrow a phrase from the "professionals." I actually didn't feel all that bad this morning. I'm going to try to start getting to bed earlier. In the past, it seemed hopeless to try and get more than 7 hours sleep or so, but here's hoping that trend is a thing of the past. Or that if 7 does continue to be my magic number, that those hours will be much more effective in allowing my body, mind, and spirit to actually repair, refresh, and renew.

-Russ

http://imgur[dot]com/a/MI34x

Another pretty decent night, if I do say so myself. I woke up a few more times, but no headache, and didn't get up out of bed. I am curious about this "Leak Rate" graph. Is this something I need to be concerned with? I think I can pretty much tell when the mask is leaking, or my mouth. I did wake up a couple of those times last night with my mouth open, going "WWWWHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH," and that does seem to wake me up so I can shut up and go back to sleep.

-Russ

Your leak rate graph is actually behaving normally and you only had one brief episode of large leak flagged.

You have to understand how the leak graph works.
The top line is the total leak graph. Total leak is the mask's expected vent/intentional leak plus any excess leak.
Total leak will vary as the pressure varies (more pressure means more vent rate) so the ups and downs you see are actually normal and to be expected.
The bottom line is a close approximation to excess leak only. I don't bother with it much because Mark (who did SleepyHead) admitted that it was darn near impossible to come up with a reliable way to calculate Respironics excess only leaks because of all the variables.
The top leak line is sufficient anyway.

You do have a bit of excess leak when there is no associated pressure increase but it wasn't enough to get you into large leak territory
This is the 1:30 to 1:45 little bump in the leak that you see.
2:15 is an obvious pressure related increase...the pressure goes up so the vent rate goes up.
Same for roughly the 3 to 4 AM time frame.

It's to be expected when using variable pressures...the leak line will vary too.

I wouldn't be concerned at all with this leak graph as long as the leaks didn't wake me up.
Anything that wakes me up disturbs my sleep so if even a teeny tiny leak woke me up I would want to fix it because it disturbed my sleep.

Fixed the link for you
http://imgur.com/a/MI34x

Thanks, Pugsy. Very insightful and thorough response, and I appreciate it.

Based on my recent graphs and numbers, should I be increasing my minimum pressure at this point? It seems like that's a common suggestion, and the only night I tried it, I woke up flapping around, feeling like I couldn't breathe. To me, it looks like I'm spending considerable time at the minimum pressure, and not really topping out (much) at the maximum. Will increasing the minimum work to level things out, so to speak? Or is that the goal? I know the overall goal is to be getting a good night's restorative sleep, I'm just trying to learn to interpret the data at my disposal to that end.

-Russ

AngryQuakerIfMyRegistrationEverGoesThru wrote:To me, it looks like I'm spending considerable time at the minimum pressure, and not really topping out (much) at the maximum. Will increasing the minimum work to level things out, so to speak? Or is that the goal?

The minimum pressure is the most critical pressure setting in terms of a baseline pressure to hold the airway open and give the machine a good head start when it need to increase. Sometimes the machine doesn't sense the need to increase the pressure for various reasons....so it doesn't climb very much.
The algorithm for apap mode is complicated and relies on a combination of various things before it does the increasing and for some reason something isn't telling the machine to go higher...don't ask me what is missing...I don't have a clue.

So we increase the minimum pressure to hopefully better hold the airway open in the first place.
These machines work best by preventing the airway from collapsing in the first place instead of trying to fix them after the fact.

The goal is to prevent the collapse in the first place...better hold the airway open in general...and at the same time give the machine a bit of a head start for the times when more pressure are really needed (like maybe REM or supine sleeping) When the machine doesn't seem to want to move much but it should need to...the only thing left is more minimum.