Complex/mixed sleep apnea

Does anyone have experience with (or insight into) complex/mixed sleep apnea? On initial diagnosis, I had some central apneas but mostly obstructive. I have been using CPAP for about 10 days, and my apneas are at least as bad as, and quite often worse than, they were on my initial diagnostic test. My machine is a ResMed AirSense 10 Autoset for Her. I have tried both nasal pillows and a full face mask. My technician and I have also played around with different settings - e.g. automatic pressure vs. continuous; pressure on exhalation or not; automatic ramping vs. immediate. Nothing seems to help. I know it's still early, but I'm finding it hard to be patient when I can barely make it through the work day. Should I keep sticking with it and giving the machine time to do its thing, or are there other machines or avenues you would recommend trying? Thanks in advance for any help!

You may or may not end up with a different machine but this may help explain what might be going on with the increase in centrals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU-XTcf ... e=youtu.be

When is your follow up doctor visit scheduled?

How many centrals per hour are you averaging and approx how long are they lasting?

Thanks, Pugsy!

Right now, I don't have an appointment scheduled with the actual doctor, but I'm supposed to see the registered nurse/technician on Nov. 6 to determine if I want to purchase a machine. (The one I'm currently using is on a trial basis.)

My centrals have generally been either 9.6 or 14.7 per hour, but on some nights they've been as low as 6 or as high as 21. I'm not sure how long they're lasting, but I do know I am exhausted! (Even though these numbers would put me in the "mild" category.)

If you will use SleepyHead software there is a section called "Events" tab and if you click on it and then click on the Central apnea category it will take you to a list of all the centrals with the time they were flagged an in parentheses is the duration in seconds.
If you don't know about SleepyHead
https://sleep.tnet.com/equipment

Sometimes centrals can go away with time if they pop up as a response to cpap/apap pressures but if you had them prior to beginning cpap therapy and we can't blame the pressure for causing them then I wouldn't hold much hope of the centrals reducing to low enough levels that we wouldn't worry about them. I think it depends on how many you had without cpap therapy at all vs what you are having now.

I asked about how long they lasted out of concern for what the oxygen levels might be doing. Just something to be aware of.

For sure keep that appointment though.
Are you here in the US or some place else?

So far, I don't use SleepyHead, but I will have to look into that! I use myair.resmed.com and it gives me the number of events but not whether they are central or obstructive or how long they are. My nurse told me that they are almost all central, so that's how I know - maybe she uses the SleepyHead software? I am in Canada so I'm not sure if the process under our health care system is a bit different.

I did have somewhere around 2.5 - 3.5 central apneas per hour prior to using CPAP, so I'm not sure if that's significant enough to think they will persist? (The rest were obstructive, for a total of 9 or so events per hour.) Based on the diagnostic test, they said my oxygen levels were generally around 95% but were getting as low as 85% at some points during the night, which I understand is more concerning. I don't know if that's changed with CPAP.

Thanks so much for your help!

The nurse probably uses ResScan which is ResMed's official software.
SleepyHead was written by a cpap user and while some of the medical profession are aware of it I don't think that it is all that common. SleepyHead is geared more to us as users while ResScan is geared more to DMEs and doctors who manage a lot of patients.

Your machine will measure duration of flagged events...you can see that data point (along with a lot more) in either software.