Pressure change from 10 to 11

I have been on CPAP for 5 years. Lately I have been experiencing much more fatigue that before. My pressure has been 10 for those 5 years. I just had a 5 day in-home trial with an auto pap set between 8 and 14. The results showed that 90% of the time I was at a pressure of 11. I am going in tomorrow to have my machine reset from 10 to 11. Will I notice that 1 cm increase when I put on my mask? Will it make a noticeable difference in how I feel? In other words, will I have less fatigue?

If you used an Auto with that pressure range you mentioned, I seriously doubt that you'll notice 1 cm. pressure increase. I made a 2 cm change in my pressure back in '06 from 10 to 12 and did have a little bit of problem getting to sleep the first night, but after that, it was no problem.

Also, make sure you're not mouth-leaking. Doesn't do much good to raise the pressure if it's going to go out your mouth.

Good to see you posting again.

Den

Why not change it yourself and sleep with it tonight instead of tomorrow. Instructions at:

viewtopic/t26674/How-to-reprogram-CPAP- ... ssure.html

Jerry

Hawthorne wrote:I just had a 5 day in-home trial with an auto pap set between 8 and 14. The results showed that 90% of the time I was at a pressure of 11.

If you mean that the 90th % number was 11, that doesn't necessarily mean the machine was using a pressure of 11 90% of the time. It means the machine was using 11 AND pressures BELOW 11 ninety percent of the time. It also means the machine may have been using pressure(s) above 11 ten percent of the time.

While you might do fine just with the pressure raised to 11, you also (as Den pointed out) might do better with the pressure raised two cm's (to 12) instead of just one cm.

The 90th percentile number is usually a pretty good figure to set a straight cpap machine on, after an autopap trial. But there's nothing magic about that one number. You might have been using far less that 11 most of the night, and you might have been using 12, 13, or 14 most of that remaining 10% period of time.

Not trying to make a rebel out of you (well, maybe I am... ) but I agree with Jerry -- "Why not change it yourself and sleep with it tonight instead of tomorrow."

Den brought out a very good point -- be sure treatment air hasn't been leaking out. Out the mask or mouth. Did the person who downloaded your Smart Card tell you how the leak rate looked?

Personally, I'd want a print out of the Daily Details pages (which begin on page 4 of the Encore Pro report.) All the nights wouldn't be shown in "details" if your autopap trial lasted over a week, but the last 5 days or more of days would have detailed graphs showing leak rate, pressures being used, events (apneas/hypopneas/snores/flow limitations) that sneaked through. I wouldn't want to just hear "Oh, the ninety percent pressure was 11, so that's what we are going to set your pressure at." I'd want to see the detailed graphs from as many of the last nights of the autopap trial that were still on the report when they downloaded it.

I'm kinda' nosy that way -- about what is happening in my treatment while I sleep.

I had a discussion with my sleep doc just yesterday on this exact issue.
She didn't think a 1cm change would make that much difference. We discussed for a time, because I disagreed with her. I made a change from 10 to 11 and my numbers got worse, so to me, a 1cm difference can make a difference.

My number is probably going to be at 10cm, but I'm presently at 9cm to see if that is comparable -- when I talked about it in another post, someone said "There's no prize for higher pressure"......Absolutely true. Use the lowest pressure that works (doc concurred with that when I made the comment).

6PtStar makes a good point -- if you go to the link and find the procedure for your machine, you can change the pressure yourself and start tonight!!

Good luck
cheers
goose