New to CPAP-About to Quit

33yr old male here, diagnosed with mild sleep apnea, AHI at time of sleep test was 13.

I decided to look into sleep apnea/cpap because of my insanse daily fatigue. So I got the rx, and began CPAP 3 weeks ago, with the ResMed AirSense 11, and Full face mask as I can not only breath through my nose.

From the first night of wearing it, my fatigue has gotten progressively worse, to an unbearable point.

With the CPAP, AHI was brought down to an avg of 5 per night, with rx pressure between 4 and 20.

Anyway because of the unbearable fatigue, I stopped using it 3 nights ago and I feel less tired.,,,what gives? I want to stick to treatment but I really can not afford to feel 10x more tired than usual just dont know what to do

gmode18 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 15, 2023 2:29 pm

With the CPAP, AHI was brought down to an avg of 5 per night, with rx pressure between 4 and 20.

Pressure min 4/max 20 is the factory default. Min 4 doesn't work well for most CPAPers. This is possibly the reason for your fatigue.

The best thing to do is start using OSCAR (or the free version of SleepHQ) and post a chart in this thread. Links in my signature.

Thank you both I will download Oscar and submit the data

See sleep study attached/below

LSAT wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 15, 2023 4:58 pm

Pressure of 4/20 is the way the machine comes from the factory. Do you have a copy of your Sleep Study Report. Minimum pressure of 4 may be your problem.

See sleep study report added

Where?

Julie, I can see the sleep study. Can you see it now?

gmode18, you have an pRDI of 22.7.

The "p" is for PAT, which stands for Peripheral Artery Tone. By measuring your PAT along with several other variables, and then using various algorithms, your home sleep study makes inferences about your respiration during the night.

"RDI" stands for Respiratory Disturbance Index. This combines your AHI with RERAs. RERA stands for Respiratory Effort Related Arousals. A RERA isn't an apnea or hypopnea event, but it is an arousal that follows a limitation in your breathing and a respiratory effort to overcome the limitation. The arousal may be you waking up, perhaps briefly, or it may be you moving from a deeper sleep stage to a lighter one.

An RDI of 22.7 means that limitations to your respiration are messing with your sleep an average of more than once every 3 minutes. (Actually, you have more disturbances during REM sleep and fewer during non-REM sleep.)

Home sleep tests, including PAT tests, have their limitations; the gold standard is an in-lab overnight polysomnogram study. But I think it's fair to conclude that you need to stick with PAP therapy and get it to work for you. Once you can post an Oscar chart, people here may be able to help you optimize your settings.

In many cases CPAP isn't an instant fix for fatigue. It's not unusual to sleep worse while you get used to the circus on your face.

And when you do get acclimated it can still take a couple of months to see a definite return on the investment of your time. The result is well worth it.

loggerhead12 wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:22 pm

the circus on your face.

a very nice turn of phrase!