Difficulty getting started

Atom wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 13, 2020 11:55 am

I have some charts from yesterday. There are so many; which ones are most important?

please see the info in this link re: organizing oscar charts-

wiki/index.php/Oscar:organize

from that article-

"Suggested Support Order for your charts
Event Flags
Flow Rate
Pressure
Leak Rate
Flow Limit (Only for Resmed machines, not on Respironics)"

good luck!

viewtopic/t158560/How-to-post-images-for-review.html
Some examples of which graphs are in the thread above
We don't want a gazillion graphs to look at.

Atom,

Looks like a lot of cpaptalk denizens have already got you well on your way!

Welcome!

I agree with Miss Emerita below in that it helps to wear mask with the machine turned on during the day for night-time claustrophobia. However, the goal is to get used to wearing the mask for sleep. To me it makes sense to get the body used to it as part of your regular sleep hygiene routine as early on as possible. It should become like brushing and flossing your teeth - a habit you look forward to and know is good for you. You may already be past this part of the exercise since Miss Emerita's post, so the point may be moot. However, if you're still not wearing the mask at night, and you don't object, a sleep-hygiene-forward approach seems more prudent. Even as you continue wearing the mask with the machine on during the day to get your body comfortable with what your head already knows, by at least starting out with it at night, you're letting your body know this is now just part of a normal nighttime routine. And no need to judge yourself if you find the mask is off in the morning. The fact that you put it on before sleep is a goal in itself. For some of us, it just takes longer. We progress in little steps. Hopefully soon, you'll find that the data show you've had a full night with the mask and more.

Chris

Miss Emerita wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 04, 2020 11:12 am

In the meanwhile, I'd like to suggest that you set the machine up during the day somewhere outside your bedroom, mask up, turn the machine on, and watch TV or read or do something else distracting and pleasant. This can be a really effective way to speed up the process of adapting to the weirdness of it all, and it may reduce your feelings of claustrophobia.

My own recommendation, though others may disagree, is not to worry about night-time use for a little while, maybe a week, while diligently using the machine for several hours every day as described above.

This is from yesterday. The first part is trying to take a nap; not much luck. The second part is going to be at night. I never really did get to sleep, so I finally got up just after midnight and slept the rest of the night in a recliner. My O2 sat numbers were terrible even though I felt like I was awake the entire time. At least I did overcome the suffocation sensation, so I felt like I was breathing comfortably. Just couldn't get to sleep.

Until you actually have some solid blocks of sleep the data isn't going to be particularly useful.

Continue to work on just getting comfortable with the mask and machine and being able to actually sleep with it being on.

If you can safely take some sort of OTC sleep aid...give it a try and see if it helps or not.

Finally if this persists and you simply can't sleep with the mask and machine on then give your doctor a call and alert him/her to the problem.

The daytime numbers don't count because you're awake. And that's okay because your daytime sessions are so your head can help your body get comfy with the mask thing. Only one obstructive over two hours at night with a mostly even flow-rate pattern... you might have slept through some of that. Good!

Like Pugsy said, keep at it.

Still on square one here. Went to bed at 9 pm; last a couple of hours with the CPAP. Hard to see that it is doing any good. I never really got to sleep either; just dozed a time or two.

On the left side data scroll down below the machine settings and turn off the short session on the left (click on it to change it from green to red) and this will remove that big blank space causing the graphs to be all scrunched together. I mention this for further image postings. The big blank space is annoying and makes the other graphs segments extremely difficult to evaluate.
If you ever want to see the session on the left side in better detail....just turn off the session on the right side.
You can always turn everything back on when you are done.

Until you actually can get some solid blocks of real sleep...the data is meaningless and you can't expect to tell if it is doing any good if you aren't asleep. Awake stuff simply doesn't count.

Why are you using fixed cpap pressure at 9?

What happened after you ended the session after a couple of hours? Did you remove the mask and go to sleep?

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 9:30 am

On the left side data scroll down below the machine settings and turn off the short session on the left (click on it to change it from green to red) and this will remove that big blank space causing the graphs to be all scrunched together. I mention this for further image postings. The big blank space is annoying and makes the other graphs segments extremely difficult to evaluate.
If you ever want to see the session on the left side in better detail....just turn off the session on the right side.
You can always turn everything back on when you are done.

Until you actually can get some solid blocks of real sleep...the data is meaningless and you can't expect to tell if it is doing any good if you aren't asleep. Awake stuff simply doesn't count.

Why are you using fixed cpap pressure at 9?

What happened after you ended the session after a couple of hours? Did you remove the mask and go to sleep?

Yes, I removed the mask and went to sleep. Judging by my other monitor I slept better without the CPAP.

Thanks for the pointers.

Atom, it'd be helpful if you could answer Pugsy's question: why is your pressure set to 9? I'm sorry it is such a struggle for you to sleep with the gear. I hope you'll keep doing day-time adaptation sessions. And have you tried taking something to help you sleep?

It may sound a little counter-intuitive, but sleep guidelines suggest that if you are awake at night in bed and stay awake for 20 minutes, you should get up and do something else, like reading, until you feel sleepy. The theory behind this is to avoid psychological associations between being in bed and being anxious, frustrated, and wakeful. You don't want being in bed to automatically set all those reactions off.

Miss Emerita wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 10:09 am

Atom, it'd be helpful if you could answer Pugsy's question: why is your pressure set to 9? I'm sorry it is such a struggle for you to sleep with the gear. I hope you'll keep doing day-time adaptation sessions. And have you tried taking something to help you sleep?

It may sound a little counter-intuitive, but sleep guidelines suggest that if you are awake at night in bed and stay awake for 20 minutes, you should get up and do something else, like reading, until you feel sleepy. The theory behind this is to avoid psychological associations between being in bed and being anxious, frustrated, and wakeful. You don't want being in bed to automatically set all those reactions off.

Sorry, I forgot to. That's where it was set when I got it; supposedly set by physician. Do you have a better idea about where it should be?

Thanks for the information, atom. Pugsy has the expertise to recommend changes, when she thinks the time is right.

Auto mode...minimum pressure 6 cm
maximum pressure 20
see what happens
It's a guess because there isn't really any asleep data to fall back on and guide us. Minimum will probably need to be adjust but gotta start somewhere.

Turn EPR off for now if you can handle it.
Starting at 6 cm should be fairly easy to handle with no exhale relief.

First priority....get you some actual sleep using the machine and mask because without sleep we have nothing to go on at all.
So...get some sleep first and worry about tweaking the settings once we have some real sleep data to evaluate. Can't tell a darn thing from awake data at all.

Does this look right?

Atom wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 1:47 pm

screenshot-20200415-144640.png

Does this look right?

It looks like you've arranged it so we only see your night progress for April 14. That gives you a clearer picture of that night, for sure.
Do you suppose you're interested in trying changes in your settings via the Clinician's menu? Pugsy had some awesome suggestions of how she might do things in your situation.

Chris