New w/o Sleep Study, need numbers.

When setting my numbers on the CPAP, how hard should it be to exhale? Should I not notice, notice just a little, et ?

GoodGuyQ wrote:When setting my numbers on the CPAP, how hard should it be to exhale? Should I not notice, notice just a little, et ?

most people, once they get used to it, don't notice anything at all.

at first, it can be intimidating.

I'm not sure there's really a 'right' answer to that, though, sorry.

GoodGuyQ wrote:When setting my numbers on the CPAP, how hard should it be to exhale? Should I not notice, notice just a little, et ?

No sleep study? How did you get a cpap? Are you using an auto machine?

If you find it hard(er) to exhale, there's a feature called EPR, or exhale pressure relief, and you can activate it if you know your way around the machine, or manual.

If you don't have any titration, you could do what my doctor did, start at 7 and watch your AHI.

Practice wearing it while watching tv to get used to the pressure. Even at higher pressures you will wake up in the morning and wonder whether it is working because you will be so used to it.

GoodGuyQ wrote:When setting my numbers on the CPAP, how hard should it be to exhale? Should I not notice, notice just a little, et ?

What pressure are you planning to use?
It may depend on your tolerance to that pressure.

Try it and see if you feel the need to enable (or disable or adjust) the EPR settings.


Den

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On 7, with epr enabled and it seems ok.

As long as the sleep report is "on", you should be able to see your AHI in the morning.
Give each setting a few days before changing, so you can observe trends, and only change one thing at a time.

I woke and took off the mask (the nasal pillow). This morning, dead tired and no work today..So I put on a nasal mask, set to 10 and went to sleep. All seemed well. Wife told me I still snored, but not as much and she did not notice my teeth grinding.

My question: Should I still snore a lot while using CPAP?

GoodGuyQ wrote:I woke and took off the mask (the nasal pillow). This morning, dead tired and no work today..So I put on a nasal mask, set to 10 and went to sleep. All seemed well. Wife told me I still snored, but not as much and she did not notice my teeth grinding.

My question: Should I still snore a lot while using CPAP?

Look at the data.
Nasal snoring or mouth snoring?
If your mouth is falling open and you're mouth-breathing, you're probably going to "snore".
If your nasal passages are congested and you can't breathe through your nose (and your mouth opens to breathe), you're probably going to "snore".
If your pressure isn't optimal, you're probably going to "snore".


Den

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Snoring is a strong indicator of airway closure and a need to increase pressure. On an Auto machine, snoring will cause the machine to automatically elevate pressure. So, I would recommend increasing pressure by 1 until that goes away. With a pressure setting of 10 you are just at the minimum pressure I use. Take it to 11, and thank your wife for being observant.

Ideally the pressure should reduce or eliminate the snoring. If you seem to handle the 10 cm pressure ok that should be a good starting point for you......to eliminate the snoring you'll want to gradually increase the pressure, but as others have stated take small steps and give each increase several days to settle down before making more changes.

It's really good that your wife is giving you feed back, hopefully you'll get to the point that the cpap will eliminate the audible snoring.....that would be an indicator that your therapy is effective. Ideally you should download Sleepyhead software so you can really see what's going on, so that should be a goal for you.

Just a little fyi.....if someone is using an Auto adjusting PAP the vibratory snore air flow would be a trigger for the APAP machine to increase pressure within the set range on its own, so since APAPs use snoring as a trigger to raise pressure, then if you are using a fixed pressure cpap machine and your wife said you're still snoring then that should be a trigger for you to use a little more pressure as well.

But just to emphasize you should use software like Sleepyhead so you can view your machines detailed data to really get a handle on the best therapy pressure.