Lowest possible pressure ???

Hello,

My auto CPAP machine is set at 5.5 - 8.5 and my avg. AHI is about 3.5. I use the Encore Viewer software and I'm told that the readouts average up. With that said, I seem to average 5.5 (pressure) about 80-85% of the time.

I'm feeling OK, sometimes a bit more tired then I should be. MY QUESTION, does anyone out there think the a minimun of 5.0 might make a difference from 5.5. IN OTHER WORDS, if the minimum amount of air is a bit TOO high, could that make a difference in the way I feel ??

So, if your body needs the pressure to be at 4.5 or 5.0 but the machine will only let get to a low of 5.5 is that an issue?

You gave your average pressure but not your 90% pressure.

A difference of 0.5 cm can make a big difference in AHI and in how your feel.

I think the 90% pressure is a more helpful number in deciding what is your best minimum pressure, provided your 90% pressure is fairly consistent but, of course, how you feel over a period of time is the most important.

It's more likely that a minimum pressure more than 5 (or 5.5 cm) would make you feel better and lower your AHI, given that that is quite a low minimum.

Posting a dalily data page (page 4) from Encore Viewer would give forum members more to go on in offering advise.

Hathorne,

My last 14 "90%" readings are 8,8,9,8,7,8,9,7,9,8,8,8,9,7.

Thanks for your interest..Marty

From my layman's perspective it sounds like your pressure settings are too low. Try setting your minimum a bit higher, just under your 90% pressure, and increase the max pressure. Hopefully others with more experience can suggest better target ranges. Please do post some graphs if you can.
What pressure were you titrated at?

7.5

This is just as I suspected and echo is right. It appears your settings are too low, not too high. Your 90% pressure means you are at the 90% pressure and below, 90% of the night. The numbers you give us indicate that your minimum should be at that 90% pressure or maybe 1 cm or 0.5 cm below that number, to begin with, to get the best therapy. When you raise the minimum you will probably do better raising your maximum pressure as well. You're getting a pretty good AHI since the sleep medicine people feel that an AHI below 5 is considered "treated". For most of us, we can do better and feel better by tweaking our pressures a bit. You probably can too. It looks like 8 cm is your most frequent 90% over the last 14 days. That would suggest a minimum of 7 cm to start probably and perhaps 10 cm as your maximum. The maximum is not as important. In fact some suggest leaving it at 20 cm a least until you see what your new 90% becomes with a higher minimum.

She is also right when she says that, knowing your titrated pressure, we can better help you set a more effective range. Knowing these 90% pressures and knowing your titrated pressure (although titrated pressures can be way off since it is just from one night in unusual surroundings) as well as seeing your daily data page would really help us help you more effectively.

If you could post that daily report (Page 4) that would really help the forum members to help you get the best pressure settings for you.

Photobucket is a free file sharing program that you can use to send us a day or 2 of your Page 4.

With some actual data pages we can give better advise.