still puzzled over why I'm waking up (sleepyhead data)

Julie wrote:No - the whole point of the ramp is that it increases in slow increments - you set the timing... don't confuse it with the prescribed pressure setting it ramps up to, the one where if you did not use the ramp the pressure would jump all at once (but in fact, 8 is so relatively low it really shouldn't be a hard thing to manage... there are people here with settings starting at 15 who don't use the ramp and just take the initial blast).

Ah okay, yes that makes sense.

Well I tried the straight CPAP at 8 and I couldn't fall asleep. It felt like my nose was vibrating and I had too much air to get comfortable and fall asleep. So I changed my pressure settings to 6-9 auto, but I still woke up twice the past two nights. Sigh.

I'll try it a couple more nights and attempt straight CPAP again. But it's finals week and I need some sleep so I'll be more adventurous with my settings once this week is over.

OSAdude76 wrote:I still woke up twice the past two nights. Sigh.

So what do you do when you wake up during the night? How long do you stay awake? How long to go back to sleep?

Did you know that some awakenings during the night are normal and part of the normal sleep cycle and it may not be an indication of anything bad at all...might just be part of then normal sleep cycle?

For further experimenting with fixed pressure...why not just take the slow approach instead of the jump from 6 to 8? Increase your APAP pressure minimum slowly in small increments until you reach that 8 cm goal and see what happens. Often when the minimum pressure is more optimal in terms of holding the airway open better to start with the machine won't see the need to go as high as it has been going in an effort to "fix" things. You might get lucky and find out that with more minimum pressure to start with that the pressure stabilizes and doesn't roam around as much because it is doing a better job preventing the airway collapse and doesn't need to fix the problem with higher pressures as much.

While going from 6 to 8 is a nothing increase for a lot of us...it can be a substantial jump for others and be hard to adjust to. When that happens...go up slowly and sneak up on the target. It will be a lot easier and who knows...you might get lucky and find you don't need as much as you originally thought you needed.

OSAdude76 wrote:So I changed my pressure settings to 6-9 auto, but I still woke up twice the past two nights. Sigh.

Those are essentially the same settings that you were using when you started this thread. Your first posting, http://imgur.com/a/oAwar , indicates auto setting from somewhere around 5 to 9 with the machine taking you to 8 within just a couple of minutes. After which, the pressure varied through out the night from a low of 5 to around 8.5, averaging somewhere around 7.5. Although you didn't post it, I would expect your 6-9 setting to produce essentially the same pressure swings from 6 to 8.5. So, if pressure swings were disturbing your sleep at 5-9, I would not expect to see any great improvement with 6-9.

If you want to eliminate pressure swings as a disturbance possibility, you will have to go to CPAP mode. If 8 in cpap is uncomfortable, you could start at 7 and see if it is more comfortable and if any obstructive events occur. If 7 is tolerable, you could adjust up or down based on the number of obstructive events experienced. You could also use the ramp feature in the CPAP mode, set perhaps at a start of 5 for 20 minutes or so to provide a little initial comfort. Please review your manual for how ramp works. There seems to be a little confusion in the above postings.

Now back in another of your threads, I posted that waking up during the night is not abnormal. Many people wake up several times during the night without detrimental effects. See that thread for references. So the fact that you woke up twice during the night may or may not be significant. The answers to Pugsy's questions above could provide some insight.

When you have time please add your equipment to either your profile or in your signature line or the comments section of your equipment profile.
From the graph you initially posted it looks like a ResMed machine of some sort.
It helps us help you better/faster if we can see at a glance what you are using...don't have time to go sorting through past posts to see if you maybe mentioned it or not.

OSAdude76 wrote:Well I tried the straight CPAP at 8 and I couldn't fall asleep. It felt like my nose was vibrating and I had too much air to get comfortable and fall asleep. So I changed my pressure settings to 6-9 auto, but I still woke up twice the past two nights. Sigh.

I'll try it a couple more nights and attempt straight CPAP again. But it's finals week and I need some sleep so I'll be more adventurous with my settings once this week is over.

Yeah. It's happened to me, too. The times I've incremented my fixed pressure even one centimeter, it has taken me a while to get to sleep that night. But, usually by the second night I'm used to it and sleep just fine.

For all intents and purposes, you're probably hitting that pressure (or something close) during the night. So, what you're doing is giving up before you have a chance to try it.
But, I also agree with Pugsy's recommendation of increasing the minimum pressure until it equals the maximum pressure.


Den

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Thank you all again for the insight!

I think I will slowly try to increase my minimum pressure as you all suggest. Just going up by 1 or 2 does feel like a lot for me so I might just slowly increase by .2 or so!
Because the slight changes in pressure are bothering me when I'm awake, I'm guessing that they bother me while I'm asleep. I'll keep reporting back here for my own records (and in case other people run into similar issues).

And I know waking up a couple times a night can be normal for many people, but I never used to wake up so much before CPAP (well at least I wasnt aware of it haha). When I do wake up 2-3 times during the night I feel pretty tired the next morning. The few times I was able to get through the night without waking up I felt significantly more refreshed so that's why I think it's not normal.