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In the interest of making compliance in a timely manner, I suggest dropping the machine pressure to it's minimum for use during waking/television hours, no use fighting to breathe against high pressure if yer awake and tryin' to enjoy Big Bang, etc. If Sonya would like, I will express mail her a little-used PR Full Life FFM complete with all 3 cushions incl. at no cost to her tomorrow. (Sm. & Lg. cushions are completely unused)

Gasper62 wrote:In the interest of making compliance in a timely manner, I suggest dropping the machine pressure to it's minimum for use during waking/television hours, no use fighting to breathe against high pressure if yer awake and tryin' to enjoy Big Bang,

while I understand where you're coming from, it might be better to go ahead and breath against the pressure, and get more used to it... over time, I'd say most people get used to their pressures, I've seen over and over and over where people say "I thought it was impossible to breath against this when i started, but now, I can't even tell the machine's on, I have to lift the mask/feel the exhaust to reassure myself it hasn't shut off.

the sooner she gets used to it, the better off she'll be.

palerider wrote:

Gasper62 wrote:In the interest of making compliance in a timely manner, I suggest dropping the machine pressure to it's minimum for use during waking/television hours, no use fighting to breathe against high pressure if yer awake and tryin' to enjoy Big Bang,

while I understand where you're coming from, it might be better to go ahead and breath against the pressure, and get more used to it... over time, I'd say most people get used to their pressures, I've seen over and over and over where people say "I thought it was impossible to breath against this when i started, but now, I can't even tell the machine's on, I have to lift the mask/feel the exhaust to reassure myself it hasn't shut off.

the sooner she gets used to it, the better off she'll be.

Good point, maybe start low and increase over the course of a few hours (while awake-watchin' TV) to get conditioned and get the hang of it . Most importantly........rack up the required hours to avoid repossession.

palerider wrote:

Gasper62 wrote:In the interest of making compliance in a timely manner, I suggest dropping the machine pressure to it's minimum for use during waking/television hours, no use fighting to breathe against high pressure if yer awake and tryin' to enjoy Big Bang,

while I understand where you're coming from, it might be better to go ahead and breath against the pressure, and get more used to it... over time, I'd say most people get used to their pressures, I've seen over and over and over where people say "I thought it was impossible to breath against this when i started, but now, I can't even tell the machine's on, I have to lift the mask/feel the exhaust to reassure myself it hasn't shut off.

the sooner she gets used to it, the better off she'll be.

We actually don't have any information on what pressure(s) Sonya is using. It's quite possible her machine is set to 4-20. Or it could be set to CPAP @15 for all we know.

Until we have an idea of what pressures she is using and exactly what she means by "suffocating", we really can't give her meaningful advice on what to do to make it easier to breathe with the machine.

borgready wrote:If you can't breathe through your nose, cpap is really useless.

I strongly disagree. I do not breathe through my nose when lying down. I use my mouth. That is what the full face masks are for. That is what the Oracle mask is for. My untreated ahi was 79 without reaching REM sleep. My treated ahi is almost always under 1.5. Huge difference. I feel a ton better with a LOT of improvements.

Cpap is fixing a problem in the THROAT. What difference does it make if the air goes through the nose or the mouth, as long as reaches the THROAT?

Sleeping 4+ hours straight, sometimes 7+
I don't toss and turn all night
I fall asleep with 5-10 minutes now
I sleep much better when traveling now
No getting yelled at when sharing a room at night
Gasping choking fits gone (sometimes to the point of vomiting)
Nightmares of being chased gone
Excessive bathroom trips gone

Morning Headaches gone
More cheerful
"Tired" is no longer my standard answer to "how are you"
Energy drinks only when traveling and having

Please explain to me how my cpap treatment is a failure simply because I do not use my nose for cpap pressure.

As always, I agree with PR on this..

Unless the pressures are really high like mine, it just takes time to become acclimated to the entire process of wearing a mask and the air.

A Positive attitude is the key to success in my humble opinion.

it's very easy to lay in bed and become fixated on the pressure and the machine & quit


Dave

palerider wrote:

Gasper62 wrote:In the interest of making compliance in a timely manner, I suggest dropping the machine pressure to it's minimum for use during waking/television hours, no use fighting to breathe against high pressure if yer awake and tryin' to enjoy Big Bang,

while I understand where you're coming from, it might be better to go ahead and breath against the pressure, and get more used to it... over time, I'd say most people get used to their pressures, I've seen over and over and over where people say "I thought it was impossible to breath against this when i started, but now, I can't even tell the machine's on, I have to lift the mask/feel the exhaust to reassure myself it hasn't shut off.

the sooner she gets used to it, the better off she'll be.

I'm still trying to figure out what these reports and settings all mean. It seems I'm set for 4-20cm and I do use the ramp feature when I'm going to bed.

It's exhaling I'm having a problem with. The inhale is great, but I find it hard to exhale against the flow with the nasal pillows. I've got an XS and have a call into the DME to ask for a small or if I should try a FFM. I'd love to have a spare FFM for when I have a cold and need to mouth breathe, but they seem hesitant to give me a second mask.

That said, I had a major win last night. At 11pm, I wanted to watch another TV show, but I KNEW that was going to be the show I'd fall asleep to, so instead I went to bed. I took 1mg of xanax and firmly put on my mask. I put one strap under my hair and then small pieces of medical tape on the cheeks to keep me from taking it off. At 6:30am, when my husband was getting in the shower, I woke myself up trying to take the mask off. I re-adjusted it and went back to sleep until 7:30. WAHOO!!!!!

I'm a little groggy from the xanax this morning, but I feel like I made some major progress. That is the longest run of sleep I've had in... um... well, a really long time. Years? Now if I can do this again tonight and for the rest of the month I'll be doing great.

Sonya wrote:I'm still trying to figure out what these reports and settings all mean. It seems I'm set for 4-20cm and I do use the ramp feature when I'm going to bed.

It's exhaling I'm having a problem with. The inhale is great, but I find it hard to exhale against the flow with the nasal pillows. I've got an XS and have a call into the DME to ask for a small or if I should try a FFM. I'd love to have a spare FFM for when I have a cold and need to mouth breathe, but they seem hesitant to give me a second mask.

That said, I had a major win last night. At 11pm, I wanted to watch another TV show, but I KNEW that was going to be the show I'd fall asleep to, so instead I went to bed. I took 1mg of xanax and firmly put on my mask. I put one strap under my hair and then small pieces of medical tape on the cheeks to keep me from taking it off. At 6:30am, when my husband was getting in the shower, I woke myself up trying to take the mask off. I re-adjusted it and went back to sleep until 7:30. WAHOO!!!!!

I'm a little groggy from the xanax this morning, but I feel like I made some major progress. That is the longest run of sleep I've had in... um... well, a really long time. Years? Now if I can do this again tonight and for the rest of the month I'll be doing great.

Awesome! It really helps to have a taste of success. It does look like the 4-20 though is probably a big issue for you. Many people have trouble falling asleep at 4. Also, the ramp can't ramp to anything if your starting pressure is 4. It is also possible that as you need more pressure, the machine will search more wildly since it doesn't have a more narrow range. Looking at data will help narrow down a range and keep it from going so high that you can't sleep. It is a shame that doctors and DMEs don't realize how bad 4-20 really is for beginners. It the range for the machine, not a good range for a person.

It would be great if you could download Sleepyhead software and post a daily report with the graphs for events flow and pressure. Then the experts here can advise you on which settings to adjust to make things more comfortable.

zoocrewphoto wrote:Awesome! It really helps to have a taste of success. It does look like the 4-20 though is probably a big issue for you. Many people have trouble falling asleep at 4. Also, the ramp can't ramp to anything if your starting pressure is 4. It is also possible that as you need more pressure, the machine will search more wildly since it doesn't have a more narrow range. Looking at data will help narrow down a range and keep it from going so high that you can't sleep. It is a shame that doctors and DMEs don't realize how bad 4-20 really is for beginners. It the range for the machine, not a good range for a person.

+1

Hi, Sonya! I've read though the thread but didn't see any mention of if you are using the Exhalation Pressure Relief (EPR) feature which is designed to make breathing out easier. It's a user comfort setting available on the normal settings screen. A setting of 1 provides the least exhalation relief and a setting of 3 provides the most relief. If this was already discussed and I missed it, I apologize.

Congrats on last night. Stick with it, you can do this!

Sonya wrote: That said, I had a major win last night. At 11pm, I wanted to watch another TV show, but I KNEW that was going to be the show I'd fall asleep to, so instead I went to bed. I took 1mg of xanax and firmly put on my mask. I put one strap under my hair and then small pieces of medical tape on the cheeks to keep me from taking it off. At 6:30am, when my husband was getting in the shower, I woke myself up trying to take the mask off. I re-adjusted it and went back to sleep until 7:30. WAHOO!!!!!

I'm a little groggy from the xanax this morning, but I feel like I made some major progress. That is the longest run of sleep I've had in... um... well, a really long time. Years? Now if I can do this again tonight and for the rest of the month I'll be doing great.

Congratulations!

Sounds like you made some MAJOR progress last night. Just keep it doing what you did last night. When you know that you're going to fall asleep in front of that one last TV show anyway, do what you did last night---allow yourself to go to bed properly and mask up. Take the xanax if you need to and tape the mask on to make it more difficult to take off, and you'll probably have a lot more nights where you wake up at 6:30 or 7:30 and find the mask is still on your face.

zoocrewphoto wrote:

Sonya wrote:I'm still trying to figure out what these reports and settings all mean. It seems I'm set for 4-20cm and I do use the ramp feature when I'm going to bed.

It's exhaling I'm having a problem with. The inhale is great, but I find it hard to exhale against the flow with the nasal pillows. I've got an XS and have a call into the DME to ask for a small or if I should try a FFM. I'd love to have a spare FFM for when I have a cold and need to mouth breathe, but they seem hesitant to give me a second mask.

That said, I had a major win last night. At 11pm, I wanted to watch another TV show, but I KNEW that was going to be the show I'd fall asleep to, so instead I went to bed. I took 1mg of xanax and firmly put on my mask. I put one strap under my hair and then small pieces of medical tape on the cheeks to keep me from taking it off. At 6:30am, when my husband was getting in the shower, I woke myself up trying to take the mask off. I re-adjusted it and went back to sleep until 7:30. WAHOO!!!!!

I'm a little groggy from the xanax this morning, but I feel like I made some major progress. That is the longest run of sleep I've had in... um... well, a really long time. Years? Now if I can do this again tonight and for the rest of the month I'll be doing great.

Awesome! It really helps to have a taste of success. It does look like the 4-20 though is probably a big issue for you. Many people have trouble falling asleep at 4. Also, the ramp can't ramp to anything if your starting pressure is 4. It is also possible that as you need more pressure,

I beg to differ. Sonya says she's having no trouble inhaling when she puts the mask on. She's having trouble exhaling. Increasing the minimum pressure is likely to increase the problems she's having on exhaling against the pressure. While many people don't like starting with pressures as low as 4cm, some of us do just fine at that pressure.

For now, I think she needs to leave the pressure setting alone until she at least has a chance to see what the data says about her pressure needs. She needs to consolidate that big win from last night.

robysue wrote: For now, I think she needs to leave the pressure setting alone until she at least has a chance to see what the data says about her pressure needs. She needs to consolidate that big win from last night.

larger pillows, if they fit, might very well help that too.

robysue wrote:

zoocrewphoto wrote:

Sonya wrote:I'm still trying to figure out what these reports and settings all mean. It seems I'm set for 4-20cm and I do use the ramp feature when I'm going to bed.

It's exhaling I'm having a problem with. The inhale is great, but I find it hard to exhale against the flow with the nasal pillows. I've got an XS and have a call into the DME to ask for a small or if I should try a FFM. I'd love to have a spare FFM for when I have a cold and need to mouth breathe, but they seem hesitant to give me a second mask.

That said, I had a major win last night. At 11pm, I wanted to watch another TV show, but I KNEW that was going to be the show I'd fall asleep to, so instead I went to bed. I took 1mg of xanax and firmly put on my mask. I put one strap under my hair and then small pieces of medical tape on the cheeks to keep me from taking it off. At 6:30am, when my husband was getting in the shower, I woke myself up trying to take the mask off. I re-adjusted it and went back to sleep until 7:30. WAHOO!!!!!

I'm a little groggy from the xanax this morning, but I feel like I made some major progress. That is the longest run of sleep I've had in... um... well, a really long time. Years? Now if I can do this again tonight and for the rest of the month I'll be doing great.

Awesome! It really helps to have a taste of success. It does look like the 4-20 though is probably a big issue for you. Many people have trouble falling asleep at 4. Also, the ramp can't ramp to anything if your starting pressure is 4. It is also possible that as you need more pressure,

I beg to differ. Sonya says she's having no trouble inhaling when she puts the mask on. She's having trouble exhaling. Increasing the minimum pressure is likely to increase the problems she's having on exhaling against the pressure. While many people don't like starting with pressures as low as 4cm, some of us do just fine at that pressure.

For now, I think she needs to leave the pressure setting alone until she at least has a chance to see what the data says about her pressure needs. She needs to consolidate that big win from last night.

A couple things. One, I have found that some people think they can't breathe because of too much pressure when they are really feeling starved for air.

Two, as I continued on, with a setting of 4-20, it is possible that the machine is searching and going higher than it would need to if it were set to a narrow range. So, having a narrow range could keep it from getting to the point where she feels she can't breathe. That range may still start at 4. It may not. But clearly 4-20 is not a good range for most people.