No wonder CPAP was so hard for me!

I just received my sleep study report for my last titration. Here is a snapshot of the 3 studies I've in the last 4 months:

Diagnostic Study (no treatment this night)
sleep efficiency 93.5%
Min Oxygen Sat 62.7%
PLM 5.5
AHI 24.3 per hour


CPAP Titration Study
Sleep effecience 64% (no surprise there!)
min 02 77%
PLM 1.6
AHI 39 per hour (I have more AHI than without CPAP)

BiPAP Titration Study
Sleep efficiency: 82.8% (getting better)
Min O2 82.8%
PLM 5.3
AHI 15.8 (This is better than 39; but still too high)

My AHI is still too high so I am hoping the new BiPAP APAP machine that Rested Gal just told us about is available. My minimum oxygen is still not great but the average is above 90% so that is good. Strange how I actually did worse with CPAP than without! That explains why I felt to so bad, I think. More tweaking is in order.

FF

FF,

What is that all about, doing better without the CPAP? Sounds like maybe the second study wasn't done correctly. I thought the whole purpose of the second study was to correct the problems you are having by titrating your pressure until it either eliminates or vastly improves your AHI, etc. Did you ever ask the doctor about that or the lab who did the study? I would be curious to find out how they would explain that one. Either incorrect transference of data or something done wrong? When my second study was done, they wrote that at 10 cms., they were able to totally eliminate any snoring or episodes, hypops/apnea (no apnea on either study, though) and my O2 rates stayed over 90% the whole time. They also claimed to eliminate all PLMs (I had zero on the 2nd, but 14+ an hour on the first). DeltaDave looked over the two reports and said they may have run a computer analysis module which sometimes can't differentiate PLMs and LMs on the second study But I'll take the result that it went from 14 something per hour to zero.

Where is Deltadave when you need him???

Sleepless on LI wrote:
What is that all about, doing better without the CPAP? Sounds like maybe the second study wasn't done correctly. I thought the whole purpose of the second study was to correct the problems you are having by titrating your pressure until it either eliminates or vastly improves your AHI, etc.

Lori,
Kind of strange isn't it? I hated the first titration study and I know the pressure of cm of water was way too low for me (started at 10cm)??? Sounds like a crap shoot to me. And, then my having to continually increase the numbers until I decided to get another titration done. Now I'm at 17 and still waiting to feel that "de ja vu" feeling everyone talks about. I have to admit I am feeling somewhat better....but it is really subtle. I can't wait to try out this new BiPAP APAP combo Respironics is touting. I hope something like that would work for me because my sleep doc said my numbers are all over the place. Whatever that "really" means. Maybe it means he doesn't know what pressure I should be at????
I intend to ask him about this in a few weeks when I see him again. Got to get to the bottom of this, for sure. Somehow I think the University Fellows are being given too much leeway and the supervising physicians are not paying enough attention.
FF

FF,

Wouldn't it be nice if everything just worked the way it should and there was never a need to have to follow up on everyone and everything since it was done right the first time? Like they say, in a perfect world, which we know ain't the one we're living in.

I hope this new machine will be your answer. It is very frustrating to be compliant and not to see the results you hear spoken about on this site that others experience. But persistence pays off and you aren't giving up, so that's more than half the battle. Now you just need some questions answered and a bit of tweaking here and there. I will keep you in my thoughts that this all gets straightened out real soon for you. Someone who is trying so hard should be able to be successful if given the right tools to work with. I hope your appointment brings that closer to your grasp.

Have a good night's sleep. Who knows, maybe tomorrow morning will be the morning when you finally wake up to that feeling that you won't believe happened to you. And if not tomorrow, God willing, there is always another day for it to happen as long as you keep positive and keep trying.

Sleepless on LI wrote:FF,

It is very frustrating to be compliant and not to see the results you hear spoken about on this site that others experience.

It sure is.....

Have a good night's sleep. Who knows, maybe tomorrow morning will be the morning when you finally wake up to that feeling that you won't believe happened to you. And if not tomorrow, God willing, there is always another day for it to happen as long as you keep positive and keep trying.

Thanks, Lori It helps to have enthusiastic people cheering me on, 'cause it is easy to get frustrated with it all. Thanks for your support.

FF

FF,

I have faith you will conquer this problem. You haven't give up yet...and doesn't sound like you're even close to thinking about it. Your day is coming.