Please help! Almost a year on CPAP, still not feeling amazing

Mijjil wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 12, 2026 1:07 pm

I'm done responding

Good idea.

When you're in a hole...

Thank you all for the replies! I really appreciate the advice. A couple replies:

-I did have both vitamin D checked and testosterone. Vitamin D was on the slightly lower side of normal, but both were still normal.
-I will definitely get an Sp02 ring and connect it to OSCAR. Because I think my case resembles UARS more than OSA, I never had significant oxygen drops, but I think it’s still worth checking.
-“That's why you can configure OSCAR to show you Respiratory Disturbance Index (RDI), which does include FL and RERA, instead.” Do you need the Sp02 ring to add in RDI?
-I definitely agree something changed, and I appreciate any suggestions of things to chat about with my doctor. Unfortunately, I think when CPAP numbers look good my doctor is not too keen on digging into other things, even when I’m not feeling great, so I appreciate any leads.
-Has anyone else felt they were waking up a lot during REM/early morning hours?


Thank you all again!

You don't need an O2Ring to have OSCAR report RDI instead of AHI.

gssp wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 12, 2026 2:20 pm

-Has anyone else felt they were waking up a lot during REM/early morning hours?

Yeah...ME

It's a battle I have been fighting for the 16 plus years I have been on cpap and to be honest even before.
CPAP helped some (at least the gasping for air and snoring was readily improved upon) but I have other health issues for one thing and another thing I didn't have "mild sleep apnea" ...I had a severe case (AHI over 50) of it with O2 levels going down to 73% so just about anything would have been an improvement.

But the waking issues I still battle to this day and yes the bulk of the wake ups are in those wee hours of the morning.

I haven't felt "amazing" in so long I have forgotten how it might feel. My problems are different from your problems though.
I am a cranky old woman (just turned 74) but I know my sleep apnea is being well treated and there's no button on the cpap machine that is designed to help my other problems.

You might or might not have UARS but to know for sure if you do or don't you need one of those sleep studies with the PES device and finding someone to do it or even order it is far from easy.....and if you do you need another sleep study with the PES device to find the optimal pressure because the auto adjusting cpap/apap machines can't do that job. I know one woman who finally went through all those hoops and she ended up needing a pressure of 13 all night and her auto adjusting machine was only going to 7 because to treat her apnea issues that's all that was needed. Once she started using 13 all night....she said it was amazing the difference in how she felt. The subtle changes with UARS are not something these cpap/apap machines are designed to look for and/or respond to.

Personally....I doubt you have UARS but instead have some sort of sleep quality problem from something. In my case I know what my problem is but even knowing it doesn't mean I have had any great success in resolving it. Like I said...it's a battle I still fight and sometimes I get lucky and win but a lot of the time I lose the battle.

I doubt you have any O2 drop issues either which is why I suggested talk to your doctor and get him/her to order an overnight pulse ox test before you go spend the big bucks on one of those real expensive fancy gadgets (unless you really like playing with expensive fancy gadgets).
Most insurance companies will pay for the overnight test anyway and sometimes DMEs will just do it for free.
It's your money though and last I heard you are free to spend it on anything you want. Insurance won't pay for it though unless you have some sort of lung issue and if you did you would already know about it.

More later I gotta go try to figure out how to get a horse to take a pill that she doesn't like.

Get rid of the EPR. It often results in subtherapeutic pressures and may be contributing to unstable breathing in NREM 1/2 (OK taking some artistic license there).

Post an image of Overview in Oscar.

Post the results of your sleep study.

gssp wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 12, 2026 2:20 pm

... testosterone...

That was probably the single most important piece of information you provided.