New to CPAP

Last Night on Auto Low 6 High 8 Holy Smokes! I woke up about every hour, for about 10 minutes again, was a bit more restless and fought the mask leaking badly with the higher pressures. VS and VS2 is crazy and I only had one PB period last night. My ears hurt like heck, and were plugged with wax oddly like they were blown out...LOL

Only a Few FLs and again my mask leak at its worst between 4-5 am..





What do you think Pugsy?

Your pressure went up to 8 cm and pretty much stayed there all night. That I expected. Your CAs didn't increase though and that I also expected.

The higher pressure definitely caused you some discomfort...I would like to be a fly on the wall when they do the ASV titration because those pressures are going to be even higher.

I still don't know what to make of those snores.
I am hesitant to offer much in the way of tweaking ideas because of your history. I sure wouldn't want to suggest something that could maybe cause a bigger problem.

If you hadn't complained about the various issues associated with using more pressure and you didn't have the history of centrals muddying up things...obviously more maximum pressure is needed.

I actually think that given the discomfort alone (and forget the centrals at this time) that you may do better with a real bilevel machine where the pressures are markedly different during inhale and exhale.

The time with the large leak...probably mask movement for some reason..it was brief though and not a huge problem except it may have disturbed your already disturbed sleep.

Believe it or not...8 cm really isn't considered very high of a pressure.

I will Ieave it as is tonight as well and try making a bit different liner. It was a weird feeling butninwas able to get up again today with minimal effort. But still wipes out from my project yesterday. Yeah this time i triggered both Vs and VS2 snores. And I have a brand new OEM filters in as well that aeroflow shipped tomreplace the horrible sunset who is sending me a years supply, oy. Lol.

I'm.getting to the point where I just want to figure this out as well. As long as Medicare keeps paying I have nothing to lose other than not waking up at night.

I finally was able to get the notes from the initial study without the machine 34 marked events suspected as centrals, I was wearing the odd little thing on my lip as well as a cannula which they turned on at 3am because my SpO2 dipped to 79% so the machine is helping. I am just going to make sure the night before my ASV I stay up all night and not have any caffeine of sugars sonincan hopefully konk out and get a decent night's reading.

Other thing I have noticed and I'm guessing it's due to the lack of sleep is my neurogenic bladder issue has seemed to disappear. Not holding our hopes as I'm.sure when I finally do see deep sleep again it will return.

RestlessinWoolley wrote:Other thing I have noticed and I'm guessing it's due to the lack of sleep is my neurogenic bladder issue has seemed to disappear. Not holding our hopes as I'm.sure when I finally do see deep sleep again it will return.

If you mean frequency as in getting up several times a night to pee...you might be luckier than you think.
Nocturia is a common symptom of sleep apnea and if it's the only cause of the nocturia there's a good chance effective therapy will resolve that particular little annoyance.
For me the not having to get up and pee every hour or two was the first sign to me that my cpap therapy was helping. I used to have to get up 4 or 5 times a night and have a full bladder. Now I rarely ever have to get up and pee in the night and when I do it's usually because I drank a lot of something right before bedtime.

The short version is this.
When we have a sleep apnea event there is some stress put on the heart and the heart then cranks out a little stress hormone called ANP (Atrial natriuretic peptide). When this hormone makes its way to the kidneys then the kidneys work harder and when the kidneys work harder they put out more urine which of course fills up the bladder and we wake up due to the full bladder discomfort.

So.....if you were just talking about frequency and need to go pee during the night....if sleep apnea is the only cause then there's a real good chance that particular annoyance will be behind you.
Now of course there are other causes for nocturia and cpap can't fix problems unrelated to sleep apnea.

No sadly with my nervous system disorder, and the Neurogenic Bladder, I lose control of my bladder. I don't get woken up with the urgency to go. Now with all this going on I notice how often i do wake up with the urge to go which is usually 1-2 of the session breaks or disconnects during the night. but I do have a rash of tumors on the spine at L3,4,5,6 and have other issues with those as well. I heavily medicated on a Seizure Medicine as well, I have an unclassified seizure disorder as well, if I push myself too hard and ignore the warning signs, I will get woozy, and have the Aura and pass out totally, no twitching noting, I am totally out, not able to be awoken easily for 2-4 hours. but ever since starting on those meds i've had a small number of minor and a few major ones and of course the bladder issue shows up there as well.. SO yeah Neurofibromatosis Type ! is only one of my many issues, the Chronic Pain, the Seizures, getting arthritis really bad, migraines almost daily now, hypertension (controlled), low Thyroid, been borderline for Lympthoma for 15 years. yeah and i'm only 36. It s not fun at all.. and this sleep thing on top of it.. Why I really hope they can sort this out and get my seep fix so maybe healing can start and clear up a few things and make it so I can at least make it thru the day without collapsing..

I did try a new thing last night as well as I sleep on a Sleep Number Bed, I bumped my pressure up for tonight, but I have been wearing my under armor leggings under my normal PJs and find my legs dont twitch as much, my legs stay warmer and i can get comfortable faster. I also sleep under a mountain of blankets as i like a cold room. trying a few things tonight, I got the window cracked a bit getting some fresh air in here, and got an eye mask as well since there is so much light in the house due to various night lights and my mom who usually up to 2-3 am as well..

I just want to sort this out! Appreciate the help!!

Holy snore flagging!!! I tightened my mask a bit more, and put some lotion on my face to help make the seal better, I remember dreaming a ton last night, some really weird dreams.but I know I was awake at least 15 times last night a few disconnects to go to the bathroom. I am gonna tray and raise the max to 10 cm maybe 12 and see again, but this snore flagging is insane its getting worse. I set up a recorder last night as well and it didnt trigger on sound one and was next to my head all night.

other than today my lungs hurt like heck and my ears hurt, but my right ears been plugged up for years and I think CPAP is finally clearing that chronic issue out

I think this time I have it and it just too the higher pressure to solve it. The snore flagging is definitely mask related. When I fired up tonight machine pretty much jumped from 6 to 7 and now it's 7.5. but when it increases I get a squeal from the holes drilled in the mask, and it sounds like a snore or a whine. I rub my fingers over the holes and it goes away for a bit I'm noting times and see if it matches anything on the chart tomorrow.

Last nights Dump, I had to quickly drop from the 12 to a 9, 12 was unbearable, I could not breathe and it felt like my head was gonna pop. I winder if these false snores are the culprit. Nothing i seem to try eliminates them and they just seem to be getting worse. Ive now under the higher pressures even see the lid to the humidifier is clicking a bit on exhale, don't know. But for it to just slowly ramp up to 12 under my normal breathing and awake surprised me. even at 9 the mask became totally unbearable, but was surprised again that the snores get worse with pressure, and i peaked out at 9. SO now i am wondering what my true pressure would be if the snores were gone.




I am visiting Norco today to discuss a few things and been recommended another local outfit with even better reviews from the CPAP end. it just looks like all over not just locally CPAP DMEs are just bottom of the barrel reviewed as terrible, but people are more inclined to complain than praise. And dont trust Yelp for a minute now one I reviewed had 78% negative reviews on Yelp in the last 2 years 20 + reviews, and Google had them a 4.5 Star 2 neg reviews over the same period. anyway besides the pint, ill find someone who wants my business. Medicare should not accept a patient suffer with an ill fitting mask over 6 months because a contracted DME failed to fit a patient correctly. Well we will see how long I last today, horrod sleep last night, no dreams i can remember, and I have a full schedule on tap..

RestlessinWoolley wrote:The snore flagging is definitely mask related.

why do you think that? snores are flagged, not because of some sound, but because of low frequency (snore frequency) variations in the airflow.

you can *see* them if you zoom in far enough.

for example:


you're snoring because your pressure is too low to prevent it. your effective pressure is only about 7. try turning off flex.

It's flagging when I'm wide awake breathing normally. I'll jump on my machine with sleepyhead and do a snap shot up close of my breathing with a snore flag. No variations, unless it's got something to do with the restriction I have in my right nostril due to my deviated septum. But even that is only a 33% restriction vs my left. And last night I opened it up to 12 and the flagging went crazy. I can confirm I don't snore. Or I should say I snort or snore very rarely.

I do feel my pressure is way off as 8 felt a lot better as 6 especially now with the pressure relief on exhale, but over the last 60 nights the snore flagging has gotten consistently worse, and i am feeling worse and worse.. here is a close up of a time period where I know I was awake, as my niece walked in to ask me something a few minutes after and i can see where my respiratory line went wonky as I was talking..




This one I can safely say I was asleep and very well could be a snore event.. i just can't see why and they get worse as the pressure ramps up so its got to be a mask vibration or equipment issue.. My Doctor even says she has never seen this many events as on my test night they recorded 2 VS events one was I was talking to the tech via the inter com and one was a cough..



And correct me if I am wrong, now with the machine set at auto and I opened it up to 12 for a bit last night it was up to 12 before I even fell asleep, that when it senses these events it ramps up trying to over come them, and since with the increase in pressure the events multiplied the machine would keep ramping up if i opened the top end to its limit..So if I opened it to say 20 tonight I bet it would ramp up to 20 like it did 12 in short order..


One thought is ill take the sugglewrap off the hose but I doubt it will change anything, I cleaned every bit of the machine today, like I said even my doctor is stumped.

Unless its this little rubber flapper in the mask that is part of the Anti Asphyxia valve, I wonder if that's vibrating a bit, it slams shut with the machine off so my exhale goes thru the slots in the side and the holes in the mask, and pops open when I breath in, but normally its just open against the exhale port when the machine is on. I wish I had a way you could over look my stats Pale as like I said its just been increasing every night since day one, the first week with the wisp, the snores were almost nonexistent, maybe 1 or 2 a night not 100+ flags

January 30th Simplus Mask L pillow OEM FIlters



January 31st Simplus Mask M Pillow Non OEM Filters (already proven its no way the fileter and above scans are back to the L pillow as the M pillow tore on the 5th night of use..



huge increase of Snore Flags just in one night..

It HAS to be mask related


Here is a pic of the rubber valve ill try and see if it flutters when I breathe with the mask on

Well after having one of the worst nights possible to even remotely stay asleep I experimented with a few things and I'll have to agree it is more than likely me casuing all these false snore flagging as they are happing while I am awake. For a brief time period I popped in a menthol drop to help clear my head up as my allergies or a possible cold is coming on and it cleared both VS And VS2 snores up for a little bit. My Ahi was low 3.9 because I was only half asleep 90% of the time. Also fell asleep on my back for a period and I marked it and it was cleaner on the chart then me on my side sleeping like I usually do. I envy people with little to no pain. It destroys you and any chance of sleep I can get.

I guess this machine is just so sensitive to pick up on my nose being noisy on inhale and it's just a total fuke when I changed mask sizes the problem triplicated but it's been getting worse and worse and worse since starting CPAP. Still over a month till my Asv study. Last night I had a period over 3 minutes or more I had periodic breathing but I be yet to see a central flag like what happened during the test.

Just so flipping tired of being so tired I am unable to function. Had huge hopes for a slight improvement but have gotten none so far even messing with the pressures a bit.

Hopefully now that I will be starting at the YMCA and working on my core a bit due to my sedentary state lately my core has weakend to the point I've got to use a walker when I am out.

Appreciate all the info so far. Nothing really anyone can do now till I have the ASV Test March 22. So I'll just lurk till then.