CPAPtalk.com

borgready wrote:You say you have dry mouth a lot. If you can't breath through you nose easily, then cpap is pretty much useless. Pay attention to if you can breath through your nose before you go to bed and if you wake up in the night. Using the machine can make you nose swell shut. Note any restricted air flow through the nose on the left and right nostrils. Use some Afrin to open your nose up temporarily for the night.

If you don't get a sun tan, then start getting one. Check the vitamin D level if your pale white. Low vitamin D screws with the automatic sleeping mechanisms of the brain.

If you get the airways open, you might want to try Bipap as it seems easier to breath with.

borgready,

That is true for some people but not everyone, particularly if they can use a full face mask that enables mouth breathing and are comfortable doing that. And in this case, there isn't enough information for you to be making that conclusion. Oh and by the way, a dry mouth could mean many things and doesn't necessarily mean someone can't breath through their nose or is leaking air. That is why data is needed.

Also, I hope you are aware that Afrin should not be used more than 3 nights in a row since it it has a rebound effect and causes addiction. If greg does have a problem with sinus/nasal issues, he should consider seeing an ENT for an evaluation if he hasn't already.

I downloaded sleepy head last night and look at my info, most of it was only a month or so old with a few categories going back to more than a year. I am at work right now and from what I can tell my numbers looked pretty good. I was averaging about 2.5 events an hour how do I post a screen shot of the results? What graphs do you guys need the averages? I will not be able to do it probably until tomorrow I am at work right now and it is my daughters birthday so I wont have much if any computer time this evening. Thanks Greg

Screen shot thread viewtopic.php?f=1&t=81072&p=737779#p737779

gregkdc1 wrote:how do I post a screen shot of the results?

borgready wrote:You say you have dry mouth a lot. If you can't breath through you nose easily, then cpap is pretty much useless. .

so, basically, everybody please ignore this idiot.

gregkdc1 wrote: I was averaging about 2.5 events an hour how do I post a screen shot of the results? What graphs do you guys need the averages?

simple answer, hit f12, go into the sleepyhead folder (listed under the help/about menu) upload the screenshot to a image sharing website, (I like imgur.com) then post the bbcode link that imgur gives you into a message here.

details tab on the left, then event flags, flow, pressure, leaks, snore and flow limitation in that order.

charts can be dragged up and down, and resized.

It took me a little while to try some experimenting. For starters a tried a new chin strap and although I feel better when using it my AHI has gone up while using it. I think the reason why I feel better with it is because the leak rate has gone down quite a lot while using it and I remember waking up only a couple of times a night instead of half a dozen. So quality of sleep has improved. Here is the screen shot from last night.
WITH THE CHIN STRAP



Here is a typical night WITHOUT the chin strap.



Here is a screen shot of my sleep with a full face mask. Even though it looks good I had the worst night sleep of all with this mask and felt completely terrible the next day.



I dug out the results of my sleep study and the numbers were different then what I remembered. Obviously my pressure was set to 10, I swear they told me 13 after the study was done. My AHI was 51 during REM sleep and my O2 sat got down to 69%. I really do think that most of my medical conditions are caused by apnea as I have had this all of my life and it was never treated until just a few years ago. It just so happens that severe chronic apnea causes a condition known as pseudo cushing's syndrome (basically chronic high cortisol levels). It is funny that when I talked to the endocrinologist about my osteoporosis he grilled me on any past cortisol medication use, but then never tested me for high levels. I have a follow up appointment with him in a few months and I will bring this up to rule it in or out. Also I have recently started taking Androgel and I have noticed that the AHI has gone up a little from my past numbers.

I really don't want to wear a face mask in fact the smaller the mask the better, I am a stomach sleeper and every time I try to lay face down the mask smashes into my face, I guess another sleep study is in order. Would it help to have my machine switched to AUTO mode instead of the fixed pressure?

gregkdc1 wrote:It just so happens that severe chronic apnea causes a condition known as pseudo cushing's syndrome (basically chronic high cortisol levels).

Source? My brief research says idiopathic/sometimes linked to high alcohol consumption.

gregkdc1 wrote:It took me a little while to try some experimenting. For starters a tried a new chin strap and although I feel better when using it my AHI has gone up while using it. I think the reason why I feel better with it is because the leak rate has gone down quite a lot while using it and I remember waking up only a couple of times a night instead of half a dozen. So quality of sleep has improved. Here is the screen shot from last night.
WITH THE CHIN STRAP


Here is a typical night WITHOUT the chin strap.

Here is a screen shot of my sleep with a full face mask. Even though it looks good I had the worst night sleep of all with this mask and felt completely terrible the next day.

I dug out the results of my sleep study and the numbers were different then what I remembered. Obviously my pressure was set to 10, I swear they told me 13 after the study was done. My AHI was 51 during REM sleep and my O2 sat got down to 69%. I really do think that most of my medical conditions are caused by apnea as I have had this all of my life and it was never treated until just a few years ago. It just so happens that severe chronic apnea causes a condition known as pseudo cushing's syndrome (basically chronic high cortisol levels). It is funny that when I talked to the endocrinologist about my osteoporosis he grilled me on any past cortisol medication use, but then never tested me for high levels. I have a follow up appointment with him in a few months and I will bring this up to rule it in or out. Also I have recently started taking Androgel and I have noticed that the AHI has gone up a little from my past numbers.

I really don't want to wear a face mask in fact the smaller the mask the better, I am a stomach sleeper and every time I try to lay face down the mask smashes into my face, I guess another sleep study is in order. Would it help to have my machine switched to AUTO mode instead of the fixed pressure?

I doubt if Auto mode would help at this point.
Since you're using an EPR setting of "3", with a pressure of 10 cm., your "effective" pressure at the point of end-of-exhale/beginning-of-inhale is only 7 cm.
You might experiment with increasing your pressure by one centimeter for several nights to a week at a time. See what happens as you get closer to 13 cm. And, since they don't use any exhale relief in sleep studies, the 10 cm. / 13 cm. thing leaves some questions open for experimentation.

Do you have an actual copy of your prescription? If not, you should have one and need to get one.
Did you sleep on your stomach during your sleep study?

I'd say you've got a lot more experimenting to do before you throw in the towel for another sleep study. Except for certain aspects, most of them (beyond the first one) are somewhat dubious in value.


Den

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Drowsy Dancer wrote:

gregkdc1 wrote:It just so happens that severe chronic apnea causes a condition known as pseudo cushing's syndrome (basically chronic high cortisol levels).

Source? My brief research says idiopathic/sometimes linked to high alcohol consumption.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24047562

Drowsy Dancer wrote:Source? My brief research says idiopathic/sometimes linked to high alcohol consumption.

Nothing real definitive but I have found this list in more than one place.
http://www.pituitarysociety.org/public/ ... _html.aspx

These are the conditions that I have that are similar to Cushing's or Pseudo Cushing's. As I said I will follow up with the endocrinologist about this, but as far as I know apnea is my longest running health issue.
-round face
-central obesity
-neck fat
-osteoporosis (highly abnormal for a 39 year old male)
-secondary low testosterone
-gastrointestinal (issues diagnosed as IBS)
-high cholesterol
-very hard to loose weight My wife that is 115 lbs eats almost as much as I do

The thing that gets me is that from what I have researched Pseudo Cushing's usually resolves with treatment or eliminating what is stressing the body with the other health issues normalizing including loosing weight. This has not happened for me if anything things have gotten worse since I started CPAP.

Wulfman... wrote:Do you have an actual copy of your prescription? If not, you should have one and need to get one.
Did you sleep on your stomach during your sleep study?

No to both. the Doctor that prescribed my CPAP has lost his license and I have had a hard time getting any info from that source and I slept on my back/side for the sleep study. Is there anyway to adjust the settings without a prescription? I will call the respiratory therapist tomorrow to see what I need to do.

gregkdc1 wrote:

Wulfman... wrote:Do you have an actual copy of your prescription? If not, you should have one and need to get one.
Did you sleep on your stomach during your sleep study?

No to both. the Doctor that prescribed my CPAP has lost his license and I have had a hard time getting any info from that source and I slept on my back/side for the sleep study. Is there anyway to adjust the settings without a prescription? I will call the respiratory therapist tomorrow to see what I need to do.

Any doctor (even dentist) can write a prescription for you. It would help to know what settings to put on it, but in any case, they can. A year ago, I had my new GP/PCP write a new CPAP prescription for me with the pressure settings I've been using for over 8 years. There's a sample one on CPAP.COM's site regarding questions pertaining to prescriptions.

https://www.cpap.com/cpap-faq/Prescriptions.html

http://c0149421.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspac ... on-LMN.pdf

And, since you didn't sleep in your "normal" position in your sleep study, the data from the sleep study is somewhat dubious.

You can figure this out on your own. It just takes some perseverance and logical thinking......with a "plan" of some sort.


Den

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I am 68,I have a VPAP ASV. I have been using it for 3 1/2 years. I just dont worry about it any more. I dont check the results on the machine and I dont look at the SD card.I am very compliant,always using the machine. I find with CPAP treatment,nothing is perfect. If you get close,thats ok. I still get tired sometimes.but hey I am 68. I keep my equipment clean,I have disiplined sleeping hours and Ido ok,not perfect but its ok.

Many of us concurrently with Sleep Apnea have Diabetes. Diabetes can manifest with a skinny body in youth, can not gain muscle or weight no matter how much we eat, as our high blood sugar is poured out through our kidneys. Later in life, we can gain weight never be able to lose it. Some Diabetics, if they eat a normal meal, would become very drowsy and can go into a coma like sleep. Nearly all of those symptoms are very frustrating, except to some teen age girls, who love being thin.

gregkdc1 wrote:Is there anyway to adjust the settings without a prescription?

Sure...that part is easy to do.
This manual explains how to get into the clinical setup menu to where you can adjust the settings.
http://www.apneuvereniging.nl/forum/pdf ... manual.pdf
and there's a little video here that also shows how
http://www.cpaplibrary.com/machines.html