Successful AHI reduction with APAP + TheraVent

I have been struggling to get my AHI under 5. Most of the strikes against me have been hypopneas and CAs. The APAP has caused me a great deal of congestion which may explain the hypopneas. There I remembered when I was experimenting with TheraVent I had some success with sleeping better and would wake with ZERO congestion.

I took a TheraVent and modified the vent by closing it with tape and opening two new 3.5mm vents directly in the center of each side with a leather punch. I believe the original vent was 4mm so the new total was 7mm.

Once I applied it to my nose I used 1 inch 3M micropore tape vertically over the center of my mouth to encourage me to keep it closed. I used a full face mask with liner and pressures 7.5 to 12.

For the past 4 nights my AHI has roamed between 1 and 3 rather than 6 to 9 or 10. My median respiration has dropped from 20 to about 15.5 and my expiration has increased by about 1 second. My median pressure was around 10 rather than staying at 12 all night.

I'm pretty excited to say the least.

My next experiment will be to use waterproof tape with one 4mm hole per nostril for inhaling and exhaling. In other words restricting both where TheraVent only restricts exhaling. My guess is the extra CO2 that creates nitric oxide and promotes oxygen saturation is the reason the TheraVent worked so well.

Reducing but not severally restricting the in and out breath may multiply the effect.

You are using one product which reduces the flow of air exhaled and then using CPAP which is supposed to enhance the flow of air in and out.

I don't see much success for this... in fact I think it is kind of nuts. You are potentially increasing the amount of CO2 in your system which is a nice way to kill yourself.

I think there is way more to this than meets the eye and certainly nothing to fear. PAP therapy tends to drive CO2 from the body. CO2 drives the need to breathe so when it's reduced so is the need to breathe. This probably accounts for a lot of the false "clear airway" readings people are getting in SleepyHead. When CO2 is reduced so is nitric oxide which dilates all passages from veins/arteries to nasal and throat.

Is it possible that the PAP adds to the problem that it than has to respond to in order to correct? By reducing my exhale my APAP pressure stays down where as before it would go to my top setting and stay there.

I wake with ZERO congestion or that stuffy feeling. Last night my AHI was .7 and if you throw out the CAs it was .2. Before doing this anything close to a 5.0 was a miracle.

stcrim wrote:I think there is way more to this than meets the eye and certainly nothing to fear. PAP therapy tends to drive CO2 from the body. CO2 drives the need to breathe so when it's reduced so is the need to breathe. This probably accounts for a lot of the false "clear airway" readings people are getting in SleepyHead. When CO2 is reduced so is nitric oxide which dilates all passages from veins/arteries to nasal and throat.

Is it possible that the PAP adds to the problem that it than has to respond to in order to correct? By reducing my exhale my APAP pressure stays down where as before it would go to my top setting and stay there.

I wake with ZERO congestion or that stuffy feeling. Last night my AHI was .7 and if you throw out the CAs it was .2. Before doing this anything close to a 5.0 was a miracle.

Are you using both an AutoCPAP and Teravent at the same time? Those small AHI's values that you're talking about are meaningless b/c they could be artifacts. Just being semi awake or lying on the air hose could cause them.

Krelvin wrote:You are using one product which reduces the flow of air exhaled and then using CPAP which is supposed to enhance the flow of air in and out.

I don't see much success for this... in fact I think it is kind of nuts. You are potentially increasing the amount of CO2 in your system which is a nice way to kill yourself.

I certainly agree!

stcrim wrote:PAP therapy tends to drive CO2 from the body.

I wonder what you mean by that??

If you mean it prevents events, you could say this is true - but that would not be "tend" - it would be absolutely because CO2 does buildup during an apnea.

But if you mean during normal breathing it is driving CO2 out of the body - you are wrong. The contraction of the human diaphragm drives CO2 (and nitrogen and oxygen) from the body.

stcrim wrote:I took a TheraVent and modified the vent by closing it with tape and opening two new 3.5mm vents directly in the center of each side with a leather punch. I believe the original vent was 4mm so the new total was 7mm.

Once I applied it to my nose I used 1 inch 3M micropore tape vertically over the center of my mouth to encourage me to keep it closed.

Wow! I have to agree with the skeptics. This is definitely not a long term solution and it doesn't seem to be a short term solution.

Why not use the therapy that has been proven to work in millions of patients as it was intended to be used?

stcrim wrote:The APAP has caused me a great deal of congestion

You complain about congestion. What humidifier setting are you using? What climate do you live in and what is the ambient condition in your bedroom?

Have you had a consultation and examination with an ENT/Allegist?

Sorry this is 10 minutes long but perhaps it will explain why the TheraVent works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkhGXVdjxL0 The TheraVent slows down or eliminates hyperventilation and increases nitric oxide via CO@ increase.

I'm not trying to sell anyone on doing what I'm doing (TheraVent plus Apap) but when you look at it correctly it makes total sense...

Sorry, it doesn't make sense...

stcrim, can you provide graphs that show better AHIs by using your approach?

Two Charts below. The first one is with TheraVent and APAP (ResMed s10). The second chart is the APAP only.

By SleepyHead my AHI here is .71


By SleepyHead here my AHI is 7.97

stcrim wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkhGXVdjxL0

I only need to listen to the first 30 seconds before I closed the tab.

The Butyeko view is that snoring is a reaction of your body to try to reduce your breathing, restrict it and hold on to carbon dioxide.

If Butyeko is foolish enough to believe that, I won't watch the rest of the video.

Make yourself happy.

Bye.

BTW, What Theravent does is increase the nasal pressure on exhale. So does CPAP. CPAP also increases the nasal pressure on inhale. And the CPAP process is controlled and adjustable. I'll stick with CPAP.

ChicagoGranny wrote:

stcrim wrote:
The APAP has caused me a great deal of congestion

You complain about congestion. What humidifier setting are you using? What climate do you live in and what is the ambient condition in your bedroom?

Have you had a consultation and examination with an ENT/Allegist?

I agree with Chicago. If APAP is causing congestion, there are plenty of things you can do before resorting to a radical and difficult attempt at a solution.

I really didn't post this with the intent to debate whether it works or not! You can see form the charts above there is a huge difference. TheraVent slows the breathing down while on the APAP which in turn dramatically reduces the AHIs.

The homemade version of TheraVent that I used last night did great. I'm not saying this is something anyone should try - the post is just FYI.

stcrim wrote:You can see form the charts above there is a huge difference.

No I can't.

I've been around long enough to know that comparing one night to one night is not conclusive of anything. There are far too many variables that cannot be controlled well.

Tweaking of the pressure and relief settings should be able to get you a good therapy.