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Hello ladies and gentlmen!

I suffer from severe OSA for quite a long time, and since I live behind Gods back in Serbia, Europe I just got diagnosed recently.

My mom is a nurse, and 15 years ago she noticed that I don't breathe while sleeping etc... Here, we still didn't have diagnostic nor we have been aware of sleep apnea, anyway I did night heart test and everything was ok.

Meanwhile I got more and more tired, basically was walking like a zombie, and started gaining a lot of weight etc...2 years ago we found out about sleep apnea diaagnostic in our town, I took the home test, was anxious of my problem finally being resolved and couldn't fall asleep, the doc said I'm just a nervous guy and sent me to a shrink, they've put me on beta-blockers and Zoloft. still continued living like a zombie.

I gave up, I just accepted I'm crazy, until I moved to another town and did the sleep study once again, basically because I started snoring while awake...

And voila the test shown: Severe OSA, AHI- 40.5, ODI - 53.3 and minimal Oxygen Saturation 71%.

Our medical insurance in our country doesn't cover CPAP, or any apnea therapy... Basically if you have it, you have to fund it yourself.

So, two weeks ago after I got diagnosed I got put my doc to a DME provider for CPAP machine, and they sold me, you guess, Dreamstation. Meanwhile, I found out about the foam scandal PR had, and also found out, if I remember well, that during April Phillips adviced DMEs to stop selling Dreamstations because of the foam problem, which my DME didn't have problem to do.

Anyway, I bought the machine, and since I suffer from chronic rhinitis and always have heavy nasal congestion while lying down, I got Amara Full Face Silicon, the nose impaler one mask, since it's the only full face mask they had at the moment.

And I have a hard time to adjust the seal with it, no matter how tight or loose I put it on my face seems that I can't get a good seal, even when I don't feel leaks around the mask, DS shows that seal wasn't good. Also, I still snore while sleeping.

And I doubt that they made any pressure adjustment for my needs, I got into clinical menu and saw that the pressures are 4-12, however, pressure of 4 makes me suffocating, I feel much comfortable with pressure of 7 droping down to 4 on exhale with aflex - 3, so I did that adjustment. However, every time I start the therapy, pressures get restarted and I have to set it every time prior using it. Also lately I'm not sure that I'm even getting adequate pressures, when I was using it for the first few nights the machine was "forcing me" to inhale when I get to the end point of my exhalation, but right now I can hold my breath for like 20 seconds and nothing, I don't feel it's trying to deliver me the pressure until I start to inhale it, to me it feels that something is wrong...

So I decided to bring the machine back, it was just two weeks, and I don't want to risk with cancer foam if I don't have to, I think I'll go outside my country and buy a new machine, possibly Resmed, Devillbis is also available in my country.

But meanwhile I installed Oscar and I kindly ask good people on this board to help me interprete my results and what to do until I resolve things? I'm kinda stuck with this Amara silicon mask at the moment, but I'll try to get both Dreamware fullface and Resmed F30i and rotate them.

Thanks

Morgoth wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 19, 2021 6:01 pm

right now I can hold my breath for like 20 seconds and nothing, I don't feel it's trying to deliver me the pressure until I start to inhale it, to me it feels that something is wrong...

Nothing wrong with the machine in that regard. It's not designed to force you to breathe if you old your breath. It just won't force an inhale.

Not sure what is going on with the pressures starting at 4 when the setting is at 7 and it won't hold.

Make sure you haven't got EZ Start enabled....and make sure you aren't using the ramp feature at all....both of those will default back to the 4 cm thing.

Are you keeping the machine for now or returning it now?

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 19, 2021 6:17 pm

Morgoth wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 19, 2021 6:01 pm

right now I can hold my breath for like 20 seconds and nothing, I don't feel it's trying to deliver me the pressure until I start to inhale it, to me it feels that something is wrong...

Nothing wrong with the machine in that regard. It's not designed to force you to breathe if you old your breath. It just won't force an inhale.

Not sure what is going on with the pressures starting at 4 when the setting is at 7 and it won't hold.

Make sure you haven't got EZ Start enabled....and make sure you aren't using the ramp feature at all....both of those will default back to the 4 cm thing.

Are you keeping the machine for now or returning it now?

Thanks for your response !

I think I'm going to return it, because whatever solution PR comes up regarding the toxic foam, in my country it will be solved with at least 6 months delay. The other solution in my country is Devilbiss.

And the biggest reason why I want to return it is lack of any kind of support, to the point that I have to ask you guys here what's going on with my therapy.


About pressure 4 to 7, I'm not sure I explained well, the machine is set 4-12, and everytime I change it to 7-12, next time I start it the values get back to 4-12, so I have to do it again and again and again, somehow every time it resets itself to the default settings... I read somewhere on this board I think that it has to do something with some settings stored in sdcard or something...

Morgoth wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 19, 2021 6:34 pm

The other solution in my country is Devilbiss....

fwiw, the next version of OSCAR will support the DeVilbiss BLUE (DV6x) machines. A test version is available now to any DV6x users who would like to try OSCAR with their machine.

I realized it's only 3 pics per post, so here are the other two results I had as well:

I think 8 cm minimum starting pressure is worth trying.
The one night with the much higher AHI....the large leak let events happen and the better night didn't have such a large leak.
So work on leaks as well.
When you have large leaks the pressure just can't do its job of preventing the airway from collapsing.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 19, 2021 9:06 pm

I think 8 cm minimum starting pressure is worth trying.
The one night with the much higher AHI....the large leak let events happen and the better night didn't have such a large leak.
So work on leaks as well.
When you have large leaks the pressure just can't do its job of preventing the airway from collapsing.

Yes, I feel I have a problem setting up the mask, I just can't find the right fit, to me seems that I have to tighten it a lot to get the good seal, everytime I do that I'm waking up as scarface lol... I'll try 8-15 tonight and I'll try not to tighten it up a lot... Maybe what I experience as "loose" is still too tight

Get a different mask to try as soon as you can....the other masks you mentioned are newer in design and easier to get and maintain a good seal.

I know people tend to want to crank down the mask in an effort to stop leaks but too tight is actually worse than too loose because the mask must inflate to seal and when too tight it can't inflate.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 19, 2021 9:17 pm

Get a different mask to try as soon as you can....the other masks you mentioned are newer in design and easier to get and maintain a good seal.

I know people tend to want to crank down the mask in an effort to stop leaks but too tight is actually worse than too loose because the mask must inflate to seal and when too tight it can't inflate.

So, I put the mask very loose last night, and bumped the pressure up to 8-15, but for some reason DS didn't record the night... But I think it was good, I'll see tonight.

EDIT: My bad, here it is, and seems that I was too sleepy, I didn't set it from 8 but from 7 again, but I'm quite sure I remember I did 8-15:

Many people find that if they can manage to not sleep on their backs (fanny pack full of towels, or something) the snoring drastically drops off.

Looks like you might have had some time on these files at 7 minimum so when OSCAR reports it OSCAR can't report the settings twice so it picks the lowest.
Leave the minimum at 8 and next time I think it will reflect the 8 cm minimum.

How did you sleep last night? Very much time awake with mask and machine on?

You can turn off that 15:30 sleep session and omit it from the details. Was that a nap attempt? Did you sleep?

In OSCAR look over to the left side in the detailed daily report and scroll down below the machine settings and you will see the sleep sessions and the time each begins. Just click your mouse on the 15:30 timed one and this turns it off and omits it from the report.

Julie wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 20, 2021 6:22 am

Many people find that if they can manage to not sleep on their backs (fanny pack full of towels, or something) the snoring drastically drops off.

Hi, I am not a back sleeper, I sleep on my side, or side/stomach. Everybody assumes I am a back sleeper because of my snoring, but I'm not.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 20, 2021 7:10 am

Looks like you might have had some time on these files at 7 minimum so when OSCAR reports it OSCAR can't report the settings twice so it picks the lowest.
Leave the minimum at 8 and next time I think it will reflect the 8 cm minimum.

How did you sleep last night? Very much time awake with mask and machine on?

You can turn off that 15:30 sleep session and omit it from the details. Was that a nap attempt? Did you sleep?

In OSCAR look over to the left side in the detailed daily report and scroll down below the machine settings and you will see the sleep sessions and the time each begins. Just click your mouse on the 15:30 timed one and this turns it off and omits it from the report.

Ah yes, I remember now, I tried with min pressure 8 for 15 mins, and it was too strong for me, then I revert it to 7 and fell asleep. Yes that 15:30 was a yesterday nap I think.

For my standards I slept ok, everytime I sleep over 6 hours in total I'm kinda good... If I sucess to nail 5+ hours without waking up, I'm golden. Although my sleep patterns are all over the place, one day I'll go to bed at 11PM, the other 5Am like today etc, I guess it's the result of my flexible job, and disrupted sleep for the course of many years...

We don't need the AHI graph on the image....we can get a feel for the number of AHI's per hour just by looking at the events graph.
For further screen images...omit the AHI graph and make the events graph larger...it's more important anyway.

If you can't handle 8.0....try 7.5 for a while.

You need more minimum pressure...probably more than 8 cm but if you can't handle it right now...work up slowly.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 20, 2021 7:28 am

We don't need the AHI graph on the image....we can get a feel for the number of AHI's per hour just by looking at the events graph.
For further screen images...omit the AHI graph and make the events graph larger...it's more important anyway.

If you can't handle 8.0....try 7.5 for a while.

You need more minimum pressure...probably more than 8 cm but if you can't handle it right now...work up slowly.

Hi Pugsy !

Thanks a lot for you help !

I'll try 7.5 tonight.

Does this graph works now, and what numbers should I shoot for regarding leaks ? These two big leaks are me getting up, obviously....

I think since I kinda roll to the edge of my stomach while sleeping, i may be pushing the mask against the pillow or something... Hopefully the new hybrid ones will suit me better