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Better... But not alleviated nearly enough as I will ultimately need. I think they got better the second half of the night. Perhaps a bipap would help if we need to go that route. The doc suggested that may be a next step.

A BiPap would definitely help the belly issues...I assume you are still using AFlex at max of 3 and the most relief it can drop during exhale is 2 cm and that's only a maybe assuming your breathing is rather forceful. If your breathing tends to be rather shallow the relief will be less.
BiPap offers much more exhale relief than you can get now.

Alternately if were to use a more limited range you might find that there is a maximum where the belly issues are reduce and not allow too many OA events...make a compromise.
That's a maybe though...for all we know a pressure of 8 could cause the belly issues and 8 cm won't like fix the OA issues. For some people there is a fine line where above so and so causes belly pain and below it doesn't...and we don't know where your fine line is.
You could try limiting the max to 11 and see what happens...I don't know if that will be enough of a reduction..might also need to reduce the minimum a little.

Hopefully once I get back tonight and get a few more nights of data I can get a bipap machine trade from the doc and get rid of the belly issues.

Well last couple of nights havent gone well. Last night I fell asleep fairly quickly I think for the first time in a while, but apparently at around an hour and a half into the sleep I awoke and took off the mask. I think I went to the bathroom and just got back in bed without it. Woke this morning with an awful headache.

I went ahead and shaved the beard today so hopefully I will have less mask annoyances, noisy leaks, and chafing.

As an aside, I am still not sure that the humidifier is working properly. I have it set on 4 now, and after it had been on for a while I took out the tray and felt the plate. Not even slightly warm. Shouldn't it be?

To test the humidifier test it pretty soon after starting the machine...like do the warm up thing for about 15 minutes and then test it.
Don't wait too long or you might catch it in the middle of a cycle or something.

If it isn't warm at the 15 minute mark...something is wrong.

Had a decent night last night. Even though I did take the mask off around 1am and went back to sleep, I woke back up and put it back on a couple hours later. I did still have bloating, but maybe just 70% as bad as it has been.

I noticed today that Sleepyhead reports the humidifier as being disconnected. But the unit shows the blue icon and the number 4, and Sleepyhead reports a humidifier level of 4 even though it says disconnected. But it also says I have the heated tubing which I dont have, so maybe Sleepyhead just gets that data wrong?

Yes, sometimes SleepyHead is wrong especially when it comes to settings and is something attached.
If you know it is working disregard it.
SleepyHead is still Beta software and not without its share of bugs but for the most part the bugs are minor.

One issue I am having... my jaw is dropping enough to break the seal repeatedly around my chin on the Simplus mask. I guess I could try my chinstrap with this, but I would rather not. Perhaps the large side mask instead of the medium would be more appropriate? Looks like I can pick one up on Ebay for less than $30.

Oh.... and shaving DID help a decent bit with mask comfort. Chafing is gone.

hifiaudio wrote:One issue I am having... my jaw is dropping enough to break the seal repeatedly around my chin on the Simplus mask. I guess I could try my chinstrap with this, but I would rather not. Perhaps the large side mask instead of the medium would be more appropriate? Looks like I can pick one up on Ebay for less than $30.

FWIW: My face detected more difference than I expected between a large and medium. The large rode a bit low on my chin which would push it up during the night until it lost the seal on top my nose to blow in my eyes. I bought a medium on Craigslist from a seller who had a bunch of them up for US $25 including shipping. The medium is a bit on the small side and I must cinch up a bit more than I feel I should need to. I also had to remove facial hair from the corners of my mouth but in a moment of clarity stopped short when I realized I was approaching a style that lost its popularity during WW1.

The large rode on the bridge of nose and a bit up onto the chin bone. The medium rides high on the nose bump but perfectly under the lower lip. YMMV. I sleep with my teeth together so if your jaw is more relaxed switching to the large might work you. I was just trying to give a relative difference between the sizes for reference.

Thanks!

Getting kind of mad at myself. Went to sleep reasonably quickly last night, mask felt comfortable. Wake up this morning with it on the floor. Only had it on a couple of hours according to the data. No recollection of taking it off.

Since I woke up early, I put it back on to try to get a last hour of sleep. I could tell I was having a ton of centrals since I kept all of a sudden breathing in more and realized after the fact that I must not have taken a breathe recently. In that last hour from 5:55 am until 6:55, the data shows 35 central apneas. I believe it... seemed like they were over and over and over even without having the data. All of those were at the onset of sleep, though. Do I understand correctly that lots of people have centrals at the beginning and they are not as bad or are not targeted for treatment like centrals during sleep are?

Well-- pretty good news. I slept the whole night with the mask. Still a bit hard to get to sleep and I my full, uninterrupted sleep didn't come until almost 2 because it seemed I was fighting constant tiny leaks near the eyes that drove me crazy, but I slept from about 1:50 until 6:50 and had an AHI during that time of 2.8, so a very good run.

Also, even better, for whatever reason I did not have the bloating this morning. So maybe I am turning a corner on that.

Sleep onset centrals are normal in that we all can have a few of them every now and then. They become a problem when they are so numerous that they simply keep knocking a person out of sleep and the person never gets good sleep or they are so numerous significant desats happen.

Well I woke up this morning with the mask on the floor. No recollection of taking it off. Data shows I quit using it a little after 1am and didnt know until waking up around 5:30 and putting it back on. Very annoying. Gotta figure out why I have taken it off and left it off in the night a few times now. It doesn't bother me "that much" anymore so I dont know why I would remove it. I ordered some 3m silk tape and am going to try taping and the Swift FX again soon.