I thought EPR was supposed to increase Central Apneas

Hi everyone, Thanks for all your help so far. I'm attaching Oscar graphs for my last two nights. I have a couple of questions, in case anyone has time to answer:

1) I thought EPR was supposed to increase Central Apneas and that this was the downside of it and one reason why it was best not to use EPR more than necessary (according to a video I saw by Lansky on YouTube). So I'm confused by my Oscar graphs of the last two nights. Two nights ago I had quite a good night of sleep and I had EPR set to 3. As you can see, I had no OA nor CA events that night. Then last night I set EPR to 2 and I had a horrible night of sleep and lots of Central Apnea events, during which time I experienced a relentless onslaught from the chipmunks (chipmunk cheeks, cheeks puffing out). So I'm baffled.

2) Why is my Oscar one hour off from my real time and from my oxygen ring data? I'm in New York and I therefore selected the time for this area (which it says is GMT -5:00 Eastern Time), plus I checkmarked the box "Daylight Savings Time," which we are in now. NY time is currently has a 4 hour difference from GMT, and yet Oscar is setting it at 5 hours difference. So should I claim to Oscar that I'm in Brazil (which is GMT -4:00) in order to get the correct time on my Oscar?

Thanks for any answers you may have.

Chris33022 wrote: ↑

Thu May 05, 2022 1:33 pm

Hi everyone, Thanks for all your help so far. I'm attaching Oscar graphs for my last two nights. I have a couple of questions, in case anyone has time to answer:

1) I thought EPR was supposed to increase Central Apneas and that this was the downside of it and one reason why it was best not to use EPR more than necessary (according to a video I saw by Lansky on YouTube). So I'm confused by my Oscar graphs of the last two nights. Two nights ago I had quite a good night of sleep and I had EPR set to 3. As you can see, I had no OA nor CA events that night. Then last night I set EPR to 2 and I had a horrible night of sleep and lots of Central Apnea events, during which time I experienced a relentless onslaught from the chipmunks (chipmunk cheeks, cheeks puffing out). So I'm baffled.

Jason (lefty) has a mental block about EPR, and auto machines,

Only about 15% of people have issues with the higher ventilation that EPR provides, though he doesn't seem to be blocked as much on the much higher ventilation that bilevel machines provide, go figure.

You had more CAs show up likely as a side effect of having bad sleep, as you drift in and out of sleep, it'll often show up as central apneas (properly flagged they'd be transition apnea or 'sleep-wake;junk as it's referred to here.
properly, they should be ignored.

Chris33022 wrote: ↑

Thu May 05, 2022 1:33 pm

2) Why is my Oscar one hour off from my real time and from my oxygen ring data? I'm in New York and I therefore selected the time for this area (which it says is GMT -5:00 Eastern Time), plus I checkmarked the box "Daylight Savings Time," which we are in now. NY time is currently has a 4 hour difference from GMT, and yet Oscar is setting it at 5 hours difference. So should I claim to Oscar that I'm in Brazil (which is GMT -4:00) in order to get the correct time on my Oscar?

Thanks for any answers you may have.

Your machine has it's own independent clock. The time zone setting in Oscar, last I heard, does nothing.

You can change the time in your machine.

While using exhale relief (that's what EPR is) can cause centrals to pop up in some people....it actually is a rare occurrence when this happens. It's the bilevel pressure situation that using exhale relief entails that is the trigger. It just happens in some people but the number it happens to is rather small when compared to the number of people who use use all sorts of bilevel pressures without a trigger of centrals.

Jason (LankyLefty) makes it out like everyone in the world will get centrals from using exhale relief. I totally disagree with his thinking. I have been using some form of exhale relief for well over 10 years now and I get only a rare central.
Jason also doesn't believe in using auto adjusting pressures either. That's okay...he is entitled to his opinion. Everyone get to have one.

I am betting that the bulk of your central flags are awake/arousal false positive flags since you slept poorly. Most likely a lot of awake flagging...and if you are awake then it isn't a real apnea event.
See here
http://freecpapadvice.com/sleepyhead-free-software
Most likely they were a symptom of the poor sleep and not the cause of the poor sleep.

Your machine's internal clock is off by an hour because of the recent DST change and no amount of choices in OSCAR will fix it. Prior ResMed machine's had a clock you could set but not the new AirSense 11 models. The AirSense 11 models use a time zone setting only and an internal clock...no more clock that we can get to.
The only way to correct the time with the AirSense 11 is by totally erasing all data and do a factor reset and at that time it will allow a time zone selection. Right now you can't access the time zone setting to change it. Of course this fall you would have the same problem all over again.

Now there is a work around using OSCAR...Go to preferences and cpap tab...make use of the clock drift setting to make your reports look the way you want.
Ignore the warning about not using the drift to correct clock problems. That warning was put there when the machines had a clock you could actually set.
Or alternately....you can change the time zone in OSCAR and let it think you moved to Brazil. Or where ever it takes to get your machine reporting the correct time for you.

palerider wrote: ↑

Thu May 05, 2022 1:50 pm

You can change the time in your machine.

Not on the new AirSense 11 models. No clock for us to reset at all...I guess it's internal.
Now there is a time zone choice but once it is set by DME or whomever the first time....it can't be changed either without doing a total erasing all prior data stored in the internal memory of the machine. I don't know if just a reset to factory defaults will allow access to that setting or not.

If it was me and I was in that boat and didn't want to mess with erasing past data I would just make use of the clock drift thing available in OSCAR Preferences. I think that "should" fix the problem.

palerider wrote: ↑

Thu May 05, 2022 1:50 pm

You can change the time in your machine.

Thank you SO much palerider and Pugsy! After reading palerider's message and before reading Pugsy's, I went into my machine and tried to change the time zone and a sign popped up saying "The time zone cannot be changed while there is saved therapy data." After much hesitation I decided to erase the therapy data in the machine, since I figured I already have that data in Oscar and I didn't want this 1-hour discrepancy in the Oscar graphs between my CPAP machine results and my oxygen ring results. So hopefully now they will be in sync.

Palerider, I see that you use Bleep, which I've tried a few times, and it's somewhat similar to the P10, which I use now. I don't remember seeing posts by you about any issue with chipmunk cheeks. Do you not get air in your mouth coming down from your nose and in through the back of your mouth? And if not, do you know why not?