pressure during study vs at home

When I had my CPAP titration and I I felt some air flow escaping toward my eyes. I was very tired and I don't know if this continued or not during the study. After the study I was told there was only one leak, which was corrected.

In the case of leaks, would they catch these during a study with their monitoring, or is it possible that a patient can receive a pressure setting that is higher than necessary?

The machines do not increase pressure to compensate for a leak ... they increase volume ..not pressure.
A small leak into your eyes is more of a discomfort that a problem for the machine.

So I take it the machines adjust blower speed to change air volume ( measured in something like Cubic feet per meter) to keep constant air pressure.

davep700 wrote:When I had my CPAP titration and I I felt some air flow escaping toward my eyes. I was very tired and I don't know if this continued or not during the study. After the study I was told there was only one leak, which was corrected.

In the case of leaks, would they catch these during a study with their monitoring, or is it possible that a patient can receive a pressure setting that is higher than necessary?

Dave,

During a Titration Study they will gradually increase pressure over the course of the study and will end up getting to a pressure that is more than you need in the process of finding your sweet spot, so to speak. So to answer your question, yes they will get to a pressure that is somewhat over your "best" pressure as a means to determine what pressure works best for you. And yes, their monitoring equipment and software will spot the leaks.

davep700 wrote:When I had my CPAP titration and I I felt some air flow escaping toward my eyes. I was very tired and I don't know if this continued or not during the study. After the study I was told there was only one leak, which was corrected.

In the case of leaks, would they catch these during a study with their monitoring, or is it possible that a patient can receive a pressure setting that is higher than necessary?

Leaks won't affect pressures. The machine will try to maintain the set or last pressure (in the case of an APAP pressure range) by increasing air volume for the duration of the leak.
But, during a sleep study, pressures can be different with what a person actually needs during their normal home environment would require. That's one reason why we so strongly monitoring our therapy with software.

In my own case, my sleep study stopped with a pressure of 16, my sleep doctor (in his infinite "wisdom") decided I needed even MORE pressure and upped my prescription to 18 cm. But, after I got my machine and software (from CPAP.COM), I reset it to 10 cm. and used that pressure for at least a year before doing a little more experimenting.


Den

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