Respironics and humidifier issues?

I added the question mark because I'm not certain this is a humidifier issue. I've been a PAPer for almost nine months now and I was making pretty good progress (in my mind), finally getting my AHI below 5 on a fairly regular basis. That is, until the last two weeks. My average index has been climbing, with what I'll call bursts of OAs one night, CAs another, and sometimes clusters of both in a single night.

Coincidentally (or not), I also started noticing during the same time frame that very little if any water was being used overnight, even though the humidifier level is set at 2. I have it there because I found that the original setting of 3 was leading to mornings where I was inhaling burning plastic odors when the humidifier water fully evaporated.

This morning, I sent my machine flying for the third time (kudos to Philips - no damage and no water leakage even though it's bouncing off my hardwood floor). I got up to retrieve it and took out the humidifier tank just in case. The pad at the bottom was cold to the touch, as in apparently not working. I will check it again tomorrow morning to confirm whether the heating element is indeed not working, but I'm curious whether anyone else has encountered this issue? If so, how did you resolve it?

I imagine some of you are thinking that humidifier issues shouldn't be leading to increasing AHIs or OA/CA bursts, but I'll tackle that conundrum once I resolve the humidifier mystery.

Thanks,

MC

Test it at the beginning of the night....not at the end of the night because it cycles throughout the night and you might catch it on an off cycle at the end of the night.

Either use the preheat feature or turn it on for about 15 minutes...then pull the water chamber out and check for warmth.

I have no idea about the increased in flagged event clusters but my usual suspects are supine sleeping or REM sleep.

Thanks, Pugsy. Supine positioning is my guess, but dang if using a CPAP can't enable me to finally sleep on my back! It was what triggered the prescription in the first place. Sigh...

Cheers,

MC

Mine is REM sleep...can't do much about REM anyway but the fix is the same...a little more minimum pressure to break up the clusters no matter what they are caused from.

Maybe you are getting a double whammy....on your back and in REM.

Or if it is rare that you see this and you are sleeping good and feeling good....do like I do and shrug my shoulders and move on.

The clusters are occurring during periods when the pressure is at the night's maximum, i.e., 13.5 (prescribed 12), and they don't seem to be lining up with my REM episodes (and I do mean episodic - crazy dreams!). I'm guessing it's the tendency of my bulkiness to prefer the supine position. Would you suggest amping up the max pressure? The strange thing is that this all started just a few weeks ago. Can't think of anything that I've been doing differently to trigger it.

Thanks as always, Pugsy!

Cheers,

MC

Without seeing the reports I don't know what to suggest but if are spending a lot of time maxed at whatever your upper limit is...and the clusters are happening at the same time as you are pegged out at...yeah, increase the max first and if that doesn't break up the clusters then more minimum is needed.