Rhodesengr's thread

[palerider]

I'll have the cider standing up, and you should get back to riding your pail.

ah, hemorrhoids acting up again, my condolences.
at least you've scaled back your snarkyness towards other people... maybe the cider did you some good!

[OkyDoky]

what are you guys talking about? I must have missed something. I tried 7cm last night, up from 6 and my AHI got a little worse. It went up to 2.2 from 1.6. Its just one night so I'll stick with 7 for a while. I also had the P10 a little looser and saw either some leaks or mouth breathes. The leak line was not nice and flat like posted above.

Ignore the side comments, they are in their own little world. It's about which is the best APAP or CPAP and Den is a champion of CPAP.
The cause of the increase AHI could be that the leaks disturbed your sleep a little more. I would give it more time to get a bigger picture.

[palerider]

what are you guys talking about? I must have missed something. I tried 7cm last night, up from 6 and my AHI got a little worse. It went up to 2.2 from 1.6. Its just one night so I'll stick with 7 for a while. I also had the P10 a little looser and saw either some leaks or mouth breathes. The leak line was not nice and flat like posted above.

Ignore the side comments, they are in their own little world. It's about which is the best APAP or CPAP and Den is a champion of CPAP.
The cause of the increase AHI could be that the leaks disturbed your sleep a little more. I would give it more time to get a bigger picture.

+1 whenever you start fine tuning you pressures, you should go slow, because you're going to have a normal variation from night to night, give it a few nights and see how things average out.

[Mudrock63]

what are you guys talking about? I must have missed something. I tried 7cm last night, up from 6 and my AHI got a little worse. It went up to 2.2 from 1.6. Its just one night so I'll stick with 7 for a while. I also had the P10 a little looser and saw either some leaks or mouth breathes. The leak line was not nice and flat like posted above.

Give it a few days. That's another great thing about Sleepyhead. If you go to the statistics tab and scroll down, it will give you a history of your settings, how long you were on them, and the average of AHI and the other things. Kind of a roadmap of where you have been. And it might tell you when you need to turn around. But give 7cm a chance.

I had a horrible night last night for some unknown reason. So unless I get a trend of horrible nights, I will treat it as a blip on the radar.

[palerider]

what are you guys talking about? I must have missed something. I tried 7cm last night, up from 6 and my AHI got a little worse. It went up to 2.2 from 1.6. Its just one night so I'll stick with 7 for a while. I also had the P10 a little looser and saw either some leaks or mouth breathes. The leak line was not nice and flat like posted above.

Give it a few days. That's another great thing about Sleepyhead. If you go to the statistics tab and scroll down, it will give you a history of your settings, how long you were on them, and the average of AHI and the other things. Kind of a roadmap of where you have been. And it might tell you when you need to turn around. But give 7cm a chance.

I find the overview page a better thing to look at for that, because you can see trends.

However, both pages offer useful information, whichever view works better for Rhodesengr.

[rhodesengr]

so just a bit of an update and some related questions. I have been mostly using the P10. Until a few days ago, I was using what they gave to try at Kasier which was a P10 "for her" with size M-pillows. My full kit arrived a couple of days ago. Actually the idiots at Apria sent me two full kits in two different boxes. So I thought maybe the men's version with the size-L pillows would be the ultimate setup. Turns out the size L is too big and the blue and pinlk straps at the same length as near as i can tell. So at least with the P-10, I've been using the best setup possible with that kit. I increased the pressure again from 6 to 7 and other than one night with and AHI of 1.5, most of the AHI's have been in the mid 2's. Although I have been feeling pretty good, my sense is that I wake up a lot with the P10.

yesterday my heated hose conversion kit arrived so i set that up and enabled "system-one humidification". I also lowered the pressure back to 6 and since i was a little tired of the P10 sticking in my nose and waking up a lot, I went back to a sample nasal mask I had from Kaiser. I know I should post the model but I'm at work and don't have it. I know, too many change in one night to draw much in the way of conclusion but.... I think I only woke up once with the nasal mask but the AHI for the night was 3.0. So it seems that the AHI was higher than its been but i woke up less.

It seemed that two weeks ago, my AHI's were mostly less than 2 but now are mostly more than 2 no matter what the pressure, mask or humidifier. Maybe at that level I am splitting hairs but you'd think my AHI's might trend better as I get more used to the machine.

I know there are a lot of P10 fans here and I thought maybe I liked it too. But now I am not so sure. My question is, what is considered the most comfortable nasal mask? I can continue to use the one I have from Kaiser have but might just go buy one on my own if I can't get them to get me a new one. I am looking for suggestions for some of the main and popular nasal mask contenders.

[HoseCrusher]

The most comfortable mask is the one that fits your head and seals well at the pressure you are using...

With my head I use the Nuance but I liked the Swift FX too.

[rhodesengr]

With my head I use the Nuance but I liked the Swift FX too.

well that's cool but I am asking for suggestions for covering Nasal masks and not nasal pillow masks.

[HoseCrusher]

Oops... where are my glasses...

[Cardsfan]

A popular nasal mask is the Swift FX Nano. It comes in a "for her" version also. 2 straps and both are adjustable. A really nice feature, the entire mask is soft. No hard plastic parts to hurt your face or head when you roll over on it.

[herefishy]

Forgive me if I already posted regarding the Resmed Mirage Activa LT. It's the only mask I've ever found that sticks to my face like it had glue around the edges. No leaks, no moving around, just nice sound sleep all night. Sure glad I found it.

[rhodesengr]

Well here is a question. How does one get to try a lot of different masks to find one they like the best? I guess I could buy them outright but I doubt Kaiser would buy me five different ones to try. Buying them outright would add up pretty quick since they are what like $70 to over $100 each.

[herefishy]

You can get them from cpap.com with return insurance for little more than normal, then just send back the ones you don't like.

[rhodesengr]

I was looking at the data for the last few nights. I notice that most of my OA events are preceded by a large spike in the flow rate. So I am curious what that is. Is that like a gasp followed by not breathing for a while? I would think if there was an apnea starting it would be preceded by a decline in flow as the blockage set in. It looks more like a gasp followed by holding by breath.

[rhodesengr]

So I am noticing an interesting correlation. Last night I clocked a 1.1 AHI which is my lowest ever. I didn't do anything different. Except I had been to the gym. Last Saturday, I clocked a 1.6 (third best ever). I had been surfing that afternoon which is a hellava workout. Other nights, my AHI have been mid 2's to low 3'. So it seems that on days when I get a good workout in, I get a lower AHI that night.

So it seems that exercise is good for you. Who knew?