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One more thought. AHI of 4.8 is considered "treated". And we are glad you got it there. Hopefully, with time and tweaking, you can get the AHI around 1 or 2.

The chart is an excellent idea, I'll set that up now. I think I may have a good solution for lip leak, too, but I'll see how it works tonight before I post anything about it,

Ah well. I had a bad night, but my stats are misleading. I was actually awake until midnight or so, all the events around 11:30 were me trying to adjust the mask, seal my mouth, etc. The mouth sealing did not work so well after all and what finally woke me up was air rushing through my desert-dry mouth. I'm going to try the Mirage Liberty FF hybrid again tonight after searching to see if anyone's had success plugging mask leaks around the nose.

I'm only disappointed because I had such high hopes for last night, but I do have faith in the process and I shall persevere.

I'd raise my lower pressure one point because you are still having too many obstruction events. And, looking at your statistics, your pressure stays at the median of 13.7. So raising your lower pressure to 13 will still be set below where the machine runs most of the night. You man even have to go up to 14 if 13 doesn't get rid of the obstructions.

My other idea was look in chin straps to keep your mouth closed. I have no experience with them to give any other info.

Is the high pressure bothering you? Just keep up the chart, keep notes, and find trends. It took me months to get to where I am. And I didn't have the mask problems with leaks that you do.
Don't be disappointed in last night, it's a learning experience. You learned what doesn't work with the mask, and at a setting of 12 you still have too many obstructions.
I'm sorry I can't be much help with the mask. I know to try fitting it when you are laying down and the machine is blowing air. Too tight is bad. Try mask liners.

Keep posting, you will get lots of help here.

If you click on the bottom left, where the yellow bar says "session Info" it will give you the data for each section of your sleep. In the statistics info. it will change to show the time during each session, and the statistics of your AHI will change for each session. (click on each session of time on the yellow bar).

This is a little better.



I would never have figured out that session info thing on my own.

I tried chin straps and it was awful, and didn't even help the lip leak. I'm going to try a FF hybrid tonight, and adjust the pressure, too.

It looks like your obstructive events happen in conjunction with Clear airway events. If we get rid of those obstructive events ,the CA's might go away also.
Remember to change the mask mode in your settings.

The clusters of OA make me think positional apnea is an issue here. FWIW I don't think you should make changes for a while. Leaks are still an issue, and focus on getting comfortable (off your back if possible) and see where you stand after a week.

Got it. No more changes except the mask, already made that change at the machine. I created that spreadsheet you suggestex, just entering all the data was educational. Ill try to remem her to turn back onto my side any time I wake up. Fingers crossed.

QueSera wrote:Ah well. I had a bad night, but my stats are misleading. I was actually awake until midnight or so, all the events around 11:30 were me trying to adjust the mask, seal my mouth, etc. The mouth sealing did not work so well after all and what finally woke me up was air rushing through my desert-dry mouth. I'm going to try the Mirage Liberty FF hybrid again tonight after searching to see if anyone's had success plugging mask leaks around the nose.

I'm only disappointed because I had such high hopes for last night, but I do have faith in the process and I shall persevere.

Desert dry mouth is the worst and I am always working on it. A lot of people order Orajel for dry mouth online, you can't find it in the store and they swear by it. Biotene is another product people use, I use a generic of it and it does help at times. I am learning to keep my tongue up under my upper teeth and that helps the most and I do that whether I am using the nasal or FFM even though you can open your mouth with a FFM it will still give you dry mouth. It really just takes time. For some reason last night was a good night. I do know some of my dry mouth is from medicines as well.

I am NOT criticizing the original poster! However, looking at this sleepyhead post, I have to ask why the OP's own sleep medicine specialist has not offered these changes to drop that AHI. I too, have been forced to drop my starting pressure to 4.0, way too low to respond adequately to events in the night, so I end up feeling tired and irritable during the day "despite" a low computer AHI.

Seems like this OP's offline sleep specialist is not doing their proper job, to me. I have experienced that offline IRL myself, unfortunately.

Original poster here - I don't feel criticized, Grumpy, that is an excellent question and I've been wondering that as well. I saw my dr last week for my first visit since starting CPAP at the end of December. The more I have learned here on this forum in the last week, the more I have wanted to know why she didn't have anything useful to say. But I have, as it happens, a variety of chronic illnesses, and I've learned that sometimes I had to figure things out for myself, for one reason or another, so that's what I do. I call this "informationing the crap out of" whatever it is. It's taken me a little longer this time because I was sick most of January with first-time-ever asthma-induced bronchitis. Fun! But the good news is that no one will ever expect me to shovel snow again, so every cloud has its silver lining, I guess.

Yeah your original AHI of 12 something is pretty high for using an APAP. Your sleep doc should have taken the bull by the horns, without you prompting them to do so and tried to get it lower. Evidently they did not do so.

Whats that called? Patient abandonment? Or partial patient abandonment in this case? Where a doctor gets you on the gear, sets you up and its BYE!

There is too much of that going on and it needs to start being prosecuted in the court systems more.

QueSera wrote:Original poster here - I don't feel criticized, Grumpy, that is an excellent question and I've been wondering that as well. I saw my dr last week for my first visit since starting CPAP at the end of December. The more I have learned here on this forum in the last week, the more I have wanted to know why she didn't have anything useful to say. But I have, as it happens, a variety of chronic illnesses, and I've learned that sometimes I had to figure things out for myself, for one reason or another, so that's what I do. I call this "informationing the crap out of" whatever it is. It's taken me a little longer this time because I was sick most of January with first-time-ever asthma-induced bronchitis. Fun! But the good news is that no one will ever expect me to shovel snow again, so every cloud has its silver lining, I guess.

To the original poster:

Ive had my CPAP set up and running where it was PERFECT. And I was feeling darn well near perfect as well. Trust me, when its set up right, you will feel well.

On the other hand, when my gear is not set up right, for whatever reason(s), I feel AWFUL and my personal relations with people offline deteriorate. Its not my antidepressant, either. I continue taking that real consistently, every morning. Its the gear and its me. When something changes fundamentally, either my gear or with me, things fall apart. Ive had two setbacks with CPAP. The first was a six month period where my first machine broke and replacement machines were not titrated properly and doctors were not helpful at addressing that problem. I finally had to fix the problem myself, by spending a lot of my own money buying new APAPs.

The second setback occurred near three years ago after a tonsillectomy. It changed everything and I have not gotten back, despite losing 87 lbs in a bariatric weight loss program. They say weight loss fixes sleep apnea, I have not seen that.

MrGrumpy wrote:To the original poster:

Ive had my CPAP set up and running where it was PERFECT. And I was feeling darn well near perfect as well. Trust me, when its set up right, you will feel well.

On the other hand, when my gear is not set up right, for whatever reason(s), I feel AWFUL and my personal relations with people offline deteriorate. Its not my antidepressant, either. I continue taking that real consistently, every morning. Its the gear and its me. When something changes fundamentally, either my gear or with me, things fall apart. Ive had two setbacks with CPAP. The first was a six month period where my first machine broke and replacement machines were not titrated properly and doctors were not helpful at addressing that problem. I finally had to fix the problem myself, by spending a lot of my own money buying new APAPs.

The second setback occurred near three years ago after a tonsillectomy. It changed everything and I have not gotten back, despite losing 87 lbs in a bariatric weight loss program. They say weight loss fixes sleep apnea, I have not seen that.

THEY do not know what they are talking about.