DreamStation OptiStart Problems

Hi.. Newbie patient here. I have a new DreamStation Auto CPAP machine (500X110) with nasal pillow mask and no leaking.

My prescription pressure is 6-16 cmH2O. After about a week and a half of use, my 7-day 95% pressure average is 9.3 and my 7-day AHI average is 7.4 (which seems high...?). Total machine time is slightly over 45 hours.

I felt I was suffocating at first and increased the minimum pressure from 6 to 8 and then back down to 6 because I got chicken. 8 definitely seems better than 6, but I was afraid about keeping it at 8 all night when the machine might otherwise want to go below that.

My take is that I should try and keep my minimum pressure set at prescribed 6 cmH2O and let the machine do its thing with overnight pressure tweaks… does that sound right? But I also feel I need more pressure at bedtime, something I am reading the OptiStart feature might address.

So I enabled OptiStart. But it seems to make no difference in the initial pressure setting at all. In my reading, I have seen a couple of conflicting statements about OptiStart that I was hoping someone might possibly clarify (and shame on Phillips for the vaguery on this in their terse documentation… this kind of crucial feature behavior should not have to be gleaned from a 3rd party user forum, especially considering the equipment cost!):

1. OptiStart sets the session start pressure to the previous night’s 95% average.
2. OptiStart sets the session start pressure to 2/3 of the previous night’s 95% average.
3. OptiStart sets the session start pressure to some average of a number(?) of previous night’s 95% averages.
4. OptiStart needs to see 30 hours of cumulative machine time to start working.

Can anyone say which, if any, of these statements is true, or if are there yet other descriptions I have not seen yet?

How the heck do I make this work???!!!

Regards,

MattyBoy

Turn off OptiStart first thing.
Second thing....go back to your original prescribed settings.
Third thing....get OSCAR and post a typical detailed report
OSCAR https://www.sleepfiles.com/OSCAR/
http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph ... stallation
http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph ... rpretation
Fourth thing...forget about what the 90/95% pressure is or isn't. It's not what it's cracked up to be anyway.

Most important thing....to know what to do about an AHI that is higher than we might want we FIRST have to know that that AHI is composed of....reason being sometimes more pressure isn't what is needed....it all depends on what that AHI is composed of.
Not everything can be killed with more pressure.

So post a typical detailed report...in the format outlined here
viewtopic/t158560/How-to-post-images-for-review.html
Along with how you feel you slept...like wake often....and how you feel in general during the day.