Is this ever going to get easier?

Amy (starting to yawn alot right now )

Hopefully an indication that you will sleep like a log and wake up rested and feeling well. Talk with you tomorrow. Sweet dreams that you won't remember (supposed to be a sign you were in the right stages of sleep and didn't wake up too soon...).

Oh PLEASE post those pictures!!!!! I would pay good money to see them You are too much Bill!!!
Amy

WAFlowers writes:

You should see me in a mini skirt, fishnet stockings, high heels, falsey and wig. I've got a picture around here somewhere. Pretty good looking legs; I look like some of my female cousins.

Or maybe it is better if I don't post that picture!

And this last statement proving that the therapy is helping you to think clearly and make the right decisions (phew, for all of us...)!

I just got online again after yesterday (lot going on in my neck of the woods).

Re CPAP, I have switched my AUTO to plain CPAP mode (CFLEX off) I think CFLEX is great and a must for many beginners as it relieves the chest pains may experience if on higher cms pressures.

Also have dropped h/h to 2

Also have stopped using RAMP but for my own reason. - I have been getting a lot of nasal congestion and was using sprays but it appears they cause a reaction if used too much. I tried saline spray but no change, I tried my old trick of snorting salty water (up each nostril & into throat) but that made no diff. So I then decided that I would let the xPAP ram the air into my nose and if I found it tough to breathe out, I would just do so slowly - well that seems to work! It hasn't stopped me getting to sleep & most of the time if I wake, I find my nose seems ok.

I have a breeze pillows & a swift pillows waiting to be used but 1st I will get an F&P Oracle 452 to produce the mouth sealer one of our resident genius people invented.

The nasal masks may work & they may not but I will try them at some time.

My sleep clinic advisor said to me that if I can do CPAP without RAMP, then my pressure may be too low (it is at 14 after dropping down from recom 15).

Cheers

DSM (alias Dr D)

My sleep clinic advisor said to me that if I can do CPAP without RAMP, then my pressure may be too low

Well, your pressure may or may not be too low - I have no idea about that.... but.... I can't imagine that being able to "do CPAP without RAMP" would be any indication at all of what pressure a person needs to keep the throat open. The "advisor's" statement doesn't make sense to me. Can you get the advisor to elaborate more on his/her theory?

DSM:

I have to agree with RG. I don't use the ramp with my CPAP, either. I found it to be a waste of time. My AHIs are always now under 1.0, the highest lately being 0.5, so I don't think my setting is too low. I think not needing the ramp can be indicative of good lung power and no respiratory problems perhaps. I am no doctor, either, but unless we're missing something here, I can't see the correlation. I have been keeping my machine set to APAP the past couple of nights, with the same high/low setting for the pressure, just because I like seeing the graph on the software that you don't get if it's set on straight CPAP. And I did use the ramp in the very beginning, but then decided I wanted to keep the setting the same and it wasn't really that important anymore.

DSM, what mask are you using now?

Oh, about the Oracle mouth piece, I made one last night and it didn't work for me. Those soft seals, as F&P likes to call them, don't work in my shaped mouth. It brought back all the old memories of why I stopped using that interface. I used to wake up, amongst other things, with lips that were SO swollen, it looked like a botched Botox job. And it would take hours for them to go down, not to mention the soreness that accompanied it. No matter how loose I would make that adjustment with the ring, it would pinch the bottom of my bottom lip so bad, it would blow up like a balloon. Also, the "soft" seal used to cut up my gums and inside of my lips. So the DYI Oracle modification, for me anyway, was huge failure.

Last night I decided not to tape my mouth or do anything. As I said, it was my highest AHI in days, but it was only 0.5. And my leak rate only went up by one. I KNOW I woke up with mouth breathing a few times, and my large/max. leaks figures came back. But it still has to be doing its job if my AHI is that low and the leaks are being recorded almost the same. I needed a break from waking up due to leaking Tegaderm patches. It's worse than mouth breathing, IMHO.

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