Losing weight & its effect on sleep apnea

Guest wrote:

pumbany wrote:I can breathe at 4cm, it was never a problem I have been at the 4 setting as the min for 10 years.

if i can be honest with you i am truly surprised that anyone who has been on cpap for 10 yrs would even want to start out at 4
by now you should be able to start out at your 95% pressure to eliminate more events
most people stop using ramp after 6 mos or so
you may notice an immediate improvement if you start out at a higher pressure like 95%
and once you get your leaks fixed you should feel like a new man

Guest,

Why are you a guest and not a regular member?

You are advising me to change my pressure settings based on your advice. How do I know if I can trust you if you don't register and are only a guest?

Why are you hiding as a guest?

pumbany wrote:

Guest wrote:

pumbany wrote:I can breathe at 4cm, it was never a problem I have been at the 4 setting as the min for 10 years.

if i can be honest with you i am truly surprised that anyone who has been on cpap for 10 yrs would even want to start out at 4
by now you should be able to start out at your 95% pressure to eliminate more events
most people stop using ramp after 6 mos or so
you may notice an immediate improvement if you start out at a higher pressure like 95%
and once you get your leaks fixed you should feel like a new man

Guest,

Why are you a guest and not a regular member?

You are advising me to change my pressure settings based on your advice. How do I know if I can trust you if you don't register and are only a guest?

Why are you hiding as a guest?

What would make you think you could trust, a stranger on the internet, just because they made up a stupid name and set a password on a forum. That doesn't mean trustworthy to me, it just means they DID take a small effort to be a individual. It's how they act over time that defines someone that you can trust, even then the best of us have bad days, we are mostly human. Jim

1+

Goofproof wrote:

pumbany wrote:

Guest wrote:

pumbany wrote:I can breathe at 4cm, it was never a problem I have been at the 4 setting as the min for 10 years.

if i can be honest with you i am truly surprised that anyone who has been on cpap for 10 yrs would even want to start out at 4
by now you should be able to start out at your 95% pressure to eliminate more events
most people stop using ramp after 6 mos or so
you may notice an immediate improvement if you start out at a higher pressure like 95%
and once you get your leaks fixed you should feel like a new man

Guest,

Why are you a guest and not a regular member?

You are advising me to change my pressure settings based on your advice. How do I know if I can trust you if you don't register and are only a guest?

Why are you hiding as a guest?

What would make you think you could trust, a stranger on the internet, just because they made up a stupid name and set a password on a forum. That doesn't mean trustworthy to me, it just means they DID take a small effort to be a individual. It's how they act over time that defines someone that you can trust, even then the best of us have bad days, we are mostly human. Jim

One time, this psychiatrist who had written a blog entry that I vehemently disagreed with said he would only respond to commentators with real names. So I made one up and got a response to my comment.

Anyway, point very well taken Jim.

pumbany wrote:Guest,

Why are you a guest and not a regular member?

You are advising me to change my pressure settings based on your advice. How do I know if I can trust you if you don't register and are only a guest?

Why are you hiding as a guest?

I agree. Don't trust him. I see at least one mistake he has made.

Just trust the people here who have a good track record. (And that is not me, because I don't post often.)

A large number of posts does not mean a good track record in every case. A few on here post often but don't give solid advice. Fortunately, there are solid regulars who correct them.

What on earth about registering and giving some, any name makes someone trustworthy?

What a load of ....

Julie wrote:What on earth about registering and giving some, any name makes someone trustworthy?

That is called a strawman argument. We have a guy here, Rush Limbaugh, who is famous for it. He makes up something and claims his opponents said it. Then he rails against it. You have done it, because what you said was never said by me:

ButtermilkBuoy wrote:Just trust the people here who have a good track record.

A large number of posts does not mean a good track record in every case. A few on here post often but don't give solid advice. Fortunately, there are solid regulars who correct them.

See?

Julie wrote:What a load of ....

Your ire has been up often in the last couple of months.

You're comparing me to Rush Limbaugh?

You better believe my ire is up!

Julie wrote:You're comparing me to Rush Limbaugh?

Exactly. Same tactic.

But, in your case, it may be accidental. Rush knows what he is doing.

My minimum pressure was set to 4 and I was advised by certain members and guests in this forum to increase the minimum pressure to 6 or 8.

When I asked why I should do this the answer was:
1) At 4 it feels terrible and suffocating

(However I personally do not feel suffocated at 4 I feel fine, so this is not a reason for me to increase from 4)

The second answer in this forum was:
2) At 4 the machine won't react fast enough to events.

(However on the Resmed website it says that the AutoSet devices evaluate and adjust pressure according to a 3 breath average. So if the machine adjust so fast in only 3 breaths then this seems really fast. I don't understand why you are saying that it won't adjust fast enough to events if it starts at 4. Also I am only turning on the machine at 4 and it adjusts all over the place, in only 3 breaths, very fast. Its the same 3 breaths adjustment whether I start at 4 or 6 or 8.)

Also I don't use a ramp so even thought the machine starts at 4 it auto adjusts right away to wherever it needs to go.

I still don't understand the reason why various people in this forum recommend that I should increase from a min of 4 to a min of 6 or 8.

It's simple. You may not have a problem inhaling at 4, but you do have a problem with inadequate therapy as seen on Sleepyhead. The reason for that is the low setting of 4, while theoretically able to adjust to a higher level when called for, in fact cannot do it in time to address many events from 4 rather than a slightly higher number. That's a fact of Cpap machine life, not something to argue about. The people advising you to raise your pressure aren't doing it arbitrarily... they're not saying "just try it for the hell of it", they're going by long and educated experience and knowledge of the machines and OSA, trying to help you get the best treatment possible. If you don't like the answers, then why stick around with questions? We have no hidden agenda, only suggestions based on experience that have helped others.

Julie wrote:It's simple. You may not have a problem inhaling at 4, but you do have a problem with inadequate therapy as seen on Sleepyhead. The reason for that is the low setting of 4, while theoretically able to adjust to a higher level when called for, in fact cannot do it in time to address many events from 4 rather than a slightly higher number. That's a fact of Cpap machine life.

Julie, I thank you and everyone for your help and experience. I am simply trying to understand this:

If we look at my graph from last night where would this specifically have applied? I see that at 2:10 am the pressure jumped up from the 5's up to 9. Is this an example of an event. And you are saying that if I had the minimum set at 6 then it would have reacted faster to the event becasue it would have only had to go from 6 to 9 instead of from 5 to 9?

Or is there another example of the report that you could use as an example of an event that would have helped. I am trying to get an exact example from my report so I understand what you are saying.

ButtermilkBuoy wrote:I agree. Don't trust him. I see at least one mistake he has made.

care to point out that mistake strawman?

pumbany wrote:Guest,

Why are you a guest and not a regular member?

You are advising me to change my pressure settings based on your advice. How do I know if I can trust you if you don't register and are only a guest?

Why are you hiding as a guest?

you already pissed everyone else off, i was just trying to help you still clueless after 10 years

go ahead and write your book on how to tighten a mask now.

Christine L wrote:Beware of guests posting advice. They can really screw you up.

you might be surprised to learn the christine is not christine either not even a female

"And you are saying that if I had the minimum set at 6 then it would have reacted faster to the event becasue it would have only had to go from 6 to 9 instead of from 5 to 9?"

Yes, that's the concept... and I say that because your example may not really reflect what may happen at times when apneas occur at higher levels than 9, but it's the point we're making. Not every machine and every event and every situation every night will be the same... you're dealing with human beings of different ages, med. backgrounds, uncomfortable beds, old machines, odd machines and masks that don't always fit right, but the idea of it all is to prevent 'future' apneas following ones that did not get prevented because settings were not ideal. You're going to give yourself a hard time if you try to cover every apnea throughout a given night and track exactly what happened along with where the machine settings were that night... but if you leave settings at certain levels for a few days (at least) at a time and hope other sleeping circumstances are relatively similar, you should get some kind of consistent picture of things... not exact, but close. And then you'll have what to go on for future settings, etc.

And once that's working (more or less) you can then separate out other things such as mask fit, bed or pillow comfort, meds (if...), etc. and work on those one at a time.

pumbany wrote:example from my report

To make the reports useful to us, see Pugsy's instructions ----> viewtopic.php?f=1&t=111910&view=unread#unread

BTW, photobucket is bad. Pop-ups, pop-ins, pop-overs, pop-unders. Try http://imgur.com/