looking for some general info

Hi,

I started using this gear about 6 weeks ago. My take home sleep test (took one 6 weeks ago) produced an AHI of 30. I've slowly found a min pressure of 7 to seem to work well and does not blow my mouth open often. My max pressure is at 11, it seems I don't really hit that pressure often so I've left it there. I'm wondering why I don't seem to sleep well for longer periods of time vs. what I'm seeing. I also see that my tidal volume seems to spike during hypopnea events, does this mean anything? I've been trying to find correlation between events causing my events, but other than tidal volume I can't seem to find anything else that seems consistent. I do feel quite a lot better than I did 6 weeks ago, I'm just hoping someone with more experience than myself can help me to use this gear more effectively than I am. Any advice is much appreciated.

I should note that he sleep doctor I saw wanted to sell me the equipment I have for close to $3,000.00. As I don't have insurance I opted to buy the same equip from Amazon for less than $600. The result of this is that I don't have the doctors advice any longer. That being said, he seemed to be of the opinion that if my AHI is less than 5 then I'm doing fine and should change nothing.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to help.

Dave

Good that you are feeling better! And well done on finding the cheaper route to equipping yourself.

Many of us here consider an AHI like yours to be significantly higher than it needs to be. So yes, you can use the equipment more effectively, but it may take time. You have still got significant amounts of hypopneas. Did you try a min pressure higher than 7 yet? It might reduce the hypops.

If you have the option, I would dump that doctor....... If you increase your minimum pressure you will most likely decrease the number of events and have a lower AHI. Try 8.

Thanks guys, I have tried higher min pressure prior but I found I would wake up with air blowing out of my mouth. It has been several weeks at a min of 7 so I will try pushing it up again and see what happens. No one has commented on the Tidal Volume spikes in my data, I was hoping someone could explain what it means (hopefully nothing?).


Cheers,

Dave

7/8 are low pressures...your machine starts at 4 and goes to 20. You could try taping your mouth or using a full face mask.

Hi. Welcome

I wear an N-20 mask as well. I was able to increase my pressure slowly by doing it .2 at a time leaving it there for several days to adjust then when comfortable raising it another .2 and so on.

Good luck!

I'll add another number to the mix, philips are slow and like to be around the 95% number, so I would have 9.
the spikes are more than likely a leak, adjusting or moving your mask. finger under mask scratching your nose etc. The downward ones are the ones you watch.