Finally got switched to auto - new data

Wulfman... wrote:By any chance, do you have GERD? (that you know of or may suspect)


Den

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I'm a little rusty on the acronyms, but that's acid reflux right? If so, then yes, and I take Omeprazole every night about an hour before bed. Works most of the time...

As for the side sleeping... I read once that to avoid snoring, which is worse when sleeping on the back, they recommended sewing a tennis ball to the back of your night shirt. Just in case you roll over. But the cuffs probably work better

Pugsy wrote:You know if it does end up that side sleeping makes a HUGE difference in pressure needs...maybe we need to get out the handcuffs and fix it so you can't roll onto your back.

I think my wife was wanting to get the cuffs out for me the night before last - she said I was very noisy! Curious thing was, I have seen worse leak rates, and AHIs when she hasn't complained. That night my AHI was only 2.12 ... Last night I put a pillow behind my back, and showed a lower leak rate, with an AHI of 0.27. So definitely need to work on the side-sleeping more! It's tough to break habits of a lifetime, though. FreeIndeed, my AHI was 31 before I started CPAP, which I thought was bad enough, but yours on CPAP is double what mine was! Must be awful ... I hope you get the rest you need soon. Preferably without the cuffs!

People do the tennis ball trick but that takes a while and geezzz... waking up every time to roll on your back because it hurts is really going to mess with sleep quality big time. My sleep is fragile enough without adding more discomfort to my poor old body.

I have a friend who tried the tennis balls in a back pack thing...put around a dozen of them in there and went to bed and asleep on her side and woke up the next morning flat on her back. From the looks of her report she had been on her back half the night.
Some people can sleep through anything.

Personally I always thought that fixing some sort of nice comfortable wedge to prop up on would be a better alternative but it's hard to find something that won't slide out from under a person. Back when I was trying to figure out if supine sleeping made my pressure needs increase (it didn't) I fixed up a couple of buckwheat hull pillows to build a wall that I could roll back against if I came off my side. That worked pretty well. The weight of the hulls kept the pillows from sliding out from under me. The down side to that is they take up a considerable amount of real estate in the bed and the other person in the bed doesn't end up with much room unless it's a king size bed. I did it for about a month to see if those crazy high pressures I saw in probable REM sleep were maybe made worse by supine sleeping. Didn't seem to matter as I would go to sleep on my side and wake up in same position with the wall intact and still saw the crazy high pressures for short periods of time.
So since it didn't matter...the pressure was going to have to go up anyway I abandoned any further efforts to stay off my back.

But anything is worth trying I suppose....so I tell people to go for it. They will know pretty quickly if it makes their sleep quality go down the toilet.

FreeIndeed wrote:

Wulfman... wrote:By any chance, do you have GERD? (that you know of or may suspect)


Den

.

I'm a little rusty on the acronyms, but that's acid reflux right? If so, then yes, and I take Omeprazole every night about an hour before bed. Works most of the time...

As for the side sleeping... I read once that to avoid snoring, which is worse when sleeping on the back, they recommended sewing a tennis ball to the back of your night shirt. Just in case you roll over. But the cuffs probably work better

Yes. Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)

I've been thinking that might be an underlying cause for your "wild" reports. Over the years, there have been a number of folks on the forum who had it and had similar looking reports.

If you a do a forum search on "GERD", you'll see there are 280 pages of posts and threads. The one that comes to mind (since I was relatively new on the forum) is this one (summary) involving the member "loonlvr".

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5551&p=49920&hilit=GERD#p49920


Hope you can glean some information from the links (or doing some forum searching on your own).


Den

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Check this out:



I tried staying on my side all night and it seems to have made a world of difference. I definitely need a CPAP pillow with the mask cut outs though! The new mask stays on pretty well even with my old crummy pillow, but it's not the most comfortable thing. My new problem, since i got the new mask that seals is that I'm swallowing so much air that I wake up (last night at 4:15) in the early AM all bloated with stomach cramps. I must be swallowing a lot of air during my sleep. I'm wondering if I try a nasal mask if that might help. Otherwise, we're making progress!

I think I might send the data from last night and night before to the DME and aks them if they can tell how I turned the 45 minutes of good sleep into a whole night of better sleep. We'll see, I haven't decided if antagonizing them is a good idea or not. But it's a good example of why I need to take control of my own therapy. They would have assumed that since the new mask doesn't leak all is well and I would';t have seen them for a month.

If you could stay on your side all the time (or at least the biggest part of the night) you could very well use less pressure and using less pressure will help the aerophagia a lot. Using a nasal pillow mask might also lessen the pressure needs a bit. Yours should arrive today I think. I would suggest trying the Nuance first. It has all the nasal pillow sizes in it and the other one doesn't. Besides...I think you would like it better anyway.

Be sure and watch the fitting videos on it. Don't get those straps too tight..that's the most common mistake nasal pillow mask users make. Side sleeping with a nasal pillow mask is pretty much a walk in the park. cpap.com has some fitting videos but they are also some on YouTube I think. If you put it on and look in the mirror and the first thought that goes through your mind is "piggy nose" then you have the straps too tight. It should not pull the nostrils up at all. Besides..that hurts.

If you wonder about those bed pillows with the cut outs for the mask. Just go to WalMart and get one of those cheap memory foam pillows and use an electric knife to cut out your own cut outs. Electric knife makes it super easy. That way you can see if it helps without spending nearly as much money.

Been a bit and I wanted to report back. I've been sleeping on my side, best as I can, and it's been working out! Here's Wednesday night's report and it is fairly typical of my ;last weeks reports. My leak is under the line all the time now and while I do hit max on the pressure, it's usually somewhat lower (except for a time about 3am for some reason.) Anyway check it out. I still need to get a pillow to help with the side sleeping.



Pugsy, I tried the pillow mask but the pressure kept making me inadvertently open my mouth. I haven't given up though and want to try the mouth guard idea and if that doesn't work the chin strap. The pillows felt more comfortable than the ones on the liberty that I am using right now.

Also, yesterday I felt wired all day. It was almost like being on an all day caffeine high: it was great! I was disappointed when I got my mask to fit and got down under 10 AHI and didn't feel anything. I'm hoping maybe it took a few days for me to feel the effects of good sleep. Today has been crazy with the energy as well. If this continues I'll be ecstatic! I need to lose weight in general, so having the energy to actually work out will be a great change.

that's looking pretty good!

you might consider raising the min pressure up into the low tens, so it spends less time at pressures that are way too low for you.

I'd be interested in seeing what less epr does for you too, after you've had a few days of pretty good results.

FreeIndeed wrote:Pugsy, I tried the pillow mask but the pressure kept making me inadvertently open my mouth.

That's where the tongue in the roof of the mouth trick comes in handy Blocks the air from entering the mouth from the airway.
Practice while awake watching TV when you have a chance. If the tongue doesn't block the door the air will enter the mouth and you will get chipmunk cheeks and that's annoying because it usually wakes a person up. With time and practice the tongue can be trained to stay blocking the door. I can yawn and talk with mask and machine on and not have any air enter my mouth but it took a lot of practice.

Your report looks a lot better.