First, THANK YOU, so much, for the guidance on these pages. I appreciate the countless hours you’ve put in already and for continuing to guide newbies like myself in filling the gigantic chasm between “sleep specialist” visits and actual, quality sleep.
I’d be very interested in your thoughts on:
- how to optimize my CPAP settings
- calming down my system (my body, not device) after a day of heavy exertion. I’ve noticed that my heart rate stays elevated and I sleep much more poorly after a long bike ride (2-5 hrs). This may be better suited for another forum, but figured I'd ask.
And please call me out if I’m off-base in any implied assumptions below. Beginner’s mindset
GENERAL BACKGROUND
34M, I’ve been struggling with low energy, brain fog, and periodic energy crashes for at least the last 4 years (prior to that, I was burning the candle from both ends too much to have expected to feel well-rested). I would also wake up every 2 hours or so to use the bathroom (almost always for a very small amount, not a full bladder).
Like many of you, I explored a bunch of other avenues first: bloodwork, endocrinologist, ramping up exercise (I’m in good shape, and continuing with 5x/week weight training / yoga / cycling), experimental diets (keto, eliminating dairy + gluten), TCM/acupuncture, parasite cleanse with a functional medicine practitioner, new mattress/pillows/air purifier/blackout curtains/eye mask/ear plugs, etc. I’ll admit that I continue to commit 2 cardinal sins with inconsistency in bedtime (generally within a 2-hr range) and iDevices in bed (w/ blue light glasses). I have not tried CBT-i.
I finally had an in-lab sleep study done and I was diagnosed with mild sleep apnea: AHI: 6.5/hr, RDI: 10.6/hr. I was given a CPAP prescription with a pressure range of 5-20. I skipped the 2nd study for titration (I'm self-pay - happy to put in $$ on something that may help, but the titration didn't seem necessary).
As a side note, it’s really a shame that public awareness (or at least, my personal associations) around apnea are so heavily tied to snoring and weight. As someone relatively young/fit that doesn’t snore, I spent years trying to identify other causes of fatigue before going in for a sleep study. I don’t know for sure yet that resolving the apnea will resolve my daytime fatigue and brain fog, but it seems likely that it will make at least some improvements.
CPAP EXPERIENCE
I’ve had the CPAP now for ~10 nights. I've keep the CPAP on for the entire night for the last 2 nights (~7 hours each). Not enough yet for a reliable trend, but a good start. I’m still having trouble falling asleep with it on, and I’m generally relying on a THC vape pen or TCM-advised sleep aid called Suan Zao Ren Tang to help knock me out. Over time, I’d like to ween myself off of these.
My current settings are 7-14, an EPR of 2, and no ramp. I arrived here (from the original 5-20) based on feel, not OSCAR data (hopefully this is where you come in!) Disabling ramp helped a lot with falling asleep, but I was continuing to wake up frequently, which I thought might have been from the higher upper bound and so reduced it.
It feels like my sleep quality is better so far, though I’m still feeling quite tired when I wake up (which seems reasonable given the sleep debt). I’d like to extend my sleep time to at least 8 hours.
In case my equipment info doesn’t show up in the footer, I’m using:
- Airsense 10 Auto w/ ClimateLine hose
- Airfit F30i (w/ pad-a-cheeks)
- Wellue o2ring
THE DATA
Probably the only bit you’re actually interested in
I’m including sp02 and pulse rate from my Wellue ring. Let me know if that's too much info in one screenshot and I can resize.- Screen Shot 2021-05-11 at 1.16.03 PM.png (627.61 KiB) Viewed 284 times
Oof, this was long. Thanks for reading this far, and again: I APPRECIATE YOU ALL.
Cheers!
