One Week with new S9

Hello All,

So, a little over a week ago I posted that I was getting a ResMed S9... and it would be my first cpap machine. Here are my impressions.

As far as one could possible love sleeping with a machine hooked up to them... I LOVE MY CPAP. My sleep is getting better every night as I get used to wearing the mask.

It has taken some getting used to, and I am still on that road. Here are some things I noticed.

My prescription is 9cfm

Night one:
Set air pressure from 4-14cfm, EPR to 2
- My main obstructive event was still waking me up, it's on exalation and the machine is not fast enough to catch it. I was still waking up. AHI was still not bad at about 4 to 5.

Night two:
Set air pressure from 8-12cfm
- Still being woken up by my exalation obstruction. AHI increased to 5-6. Some mouth leakage issues. Ordered a chin strap.

Night three:
Set pressure from 9-12cfm, ramp 15 minutes.
- Some mouth breathing issues. AHI nearly 8. Lots of leakage data, probably due to mouth breathing.

Night four: about the same.

Night five:
- wore a bandana tied around my head to keep my mouth shut, worked okay, but uncomfortable. AHI still 5-6.

Night six:
Pressure still 9-12cfm
- First night with chin strap. AHI dropped to 3.2. w00h00. Slept better than I can remember.

Night seven: (last night)
- AHI 1.2. w00h00. I am feeling great. Getting used to this machine. Getting used to sleeping with the nasal pillow mask. Feel so great today.

Overall:
My wife thinks the mask makes me look like a mutated elephant. HAHA. Overall, feeling good, getting used to the machine. I am happy that the therapy seems to be working. Thanks for all the support. Lanisoh helps on any rawness issues on my nose. (my wife used the same when we had our kids...)

Uncle_bob - Thanks for the manual and software. Makes keeping track of things myself so much easier.

It sure sounds like you are on the right road. One small note: CPAP pressure is measured in centimeters of water (cm H20) not cfm (cubic feet per minute). One cm H20 is the amount of pressure that it takes to support a column of water 1 cm high.

It's life-changing, isn't it?

Congrats on your progress. I'm glad to hear there are others who are getting into the groove without undue problems.

My prescription is for 11 cm. I ran in CPAP mode at 11 for about a week and noted the OSA and CSA episodes, then switched to auto mode and ran it unconstrained for another week. The lower limit always seemed to drop as low as 7, but when it got there, before long a snore or some event would kick it up again. That seemed to indicate that level was too low. So I set the lower limit for 8 and slowly tweaked it up to 8.6. Since the upper never seems to exceed 12, I see no reason for a top limit. Pressure seems to seek the lower 8.6 value where it will remain for 30 to 60 minutes with very even, regular breathing. Then something seems to come along and it pops up an inch or so for a while, before settling down against the 8.6 minimum level. Seems that setting is giving me the best sleep. 11 cm CPAP mode was way too high for me. Mask leaks were more troublesome, and I didn't sleep as well there, though it was far better than without the machine.

I'm down to usually only 1 OSA and/or CSA event and a few hypopneas each night. Loads better than the 76.5/hour and SpO2 as low as 66% I was diagnosed with about a month ago.

Lady at church yesterday remarked out of the blue that I looked like I had been on vacation, so I told her my story. She said I look years younger.

Hope that helps you or someone else out there.

Enjoy your therapy.

Well done shack. I'm curious as to what happened to your leak values after night 3? You may still end up needing a chin strap or some other control over mouth leaks.

But at the end of the day you said it yourself, you feel great

It looks like many users are as happy as myself with the S-9. Wished it was available 4 + years ago when I started papin. The data is fun to look at each day. Tweakin settings has improved each time for me with less than 20 days with S-9. I really like the papcap for a chinstrap, Mrs. Shack will like the look too! Congratulations on quick adaptation to the pap use. jlk