Question about higher settings

hi everyone,
first off, i want to say thank you for being such a great source of information and encouragement. i was recently diagnosed with OSA and have started using the cpap machine. My machine is the Resmed S8 Compact with humidifier and the Mirage Quattro mask. i was prescribed a setting of 11 on the machine. i guess like most people, the pressure was wrong for me. after a few weeks of unchanging apnea symptoms and lack of sleep, i contacted the folks at the sleep clinic. they told me my doctor would have to prescribe a pressure change. after waiting a few more weeks, i get the new prescription and turns out, it's the same setting. one of the guys at the clinic took pity on me and told me how to adjust it myself. i bumped it up to 13 and tried it out for a week or so. i noticed i was feeling a little more rested. but it was a small improvement. i then tried 14. i noticed a major change here. all of a sudden i was feeling completely rested. i've been on 14 for 2 weeks now. I feel totally rested during the day. At around 9pm i hit a wall. I have a hard time staying up past that. My only complaint right now is that it's really hard to get out of bed in the morning. I find myself sleeping really deeply. I allow myself plenty of sleep time. i'm averaging 8 to 9 hours a night. so i'm wondering, if i need to up the pressure a bit more? what i want to know is...are there any dangers of having a pressure setting that's too high?

Welcome, tonelab!

IMHO, it might be good to wait a bit before increasing pressure again. I've heard some people say that they feel like they've built up a sleep deficit by having sleep apnea for a long period of time. Great that you're feeling better!

Do you have software to monitor your therapy or are you tracking your lcd data on a regular basis? Tweaking settings is best done by a combination of how you feel and how the reports look.

Mindy

I have been on cpap for 6 weeks now and am just now feeling much better. I too have a hard time getting up some mornings, I get to such a deeper sleep than I have in years that some days I just want to sleep in cause it feels so much better. I think a lot has to do with in the past Ive been waking up exhausted, and I now have to get used to a new morning ritual. Instead of hitting that snooze button and getting more sleep, I have been making myself get up, and after I move around and wake up I feel better.

No point in getting a way to read data off boston's machine... it doesn't have any data worth reading. Boston... you'd have to at least have an Elite in order to have any data to find out what's going on.

The issue here is that your machine does not record data so other than how you are feeling you don't know if the therapy is working or not. With a machine that records full data, such as the Elite, you would have the numbers in addition to how you are feeling to form a basis on which to make adjustments.

Try to get a fully data capable machine. If you get a Resmed unit you can read the data right off the LCD screen without bothering with the software & reader. You can take that data and record it in a spreadsheet so you can see the trends over a period of time and make adjustments based on that.

My opinion is that the units that are not fully data capable should no longer be manufacturered. Sure, they can provide therapy... but there is no way to track how the therapy is going... and that is the part that makes no sense.

Indeed there's a risk in over pressurizing: you can trigger central apneas. The reduced muscular effort on inhalation can confuse your brain's autonomic signals and in worst case conditions you might even develop permanent CAs even at reduced pressures. I'd suggest you try to procure (buy or wheedle your insurance company with backing from a doctor) a data-capable machine ASAP. That way you can experiment to find the lowest pressure that provides your lowest AHI. When you hit the point where increased pressure increases your AHI, the increase is most likely due to CAs. Good luck with this!