Treating Central Apnea

I've had some good luck titrating central apnea patients with ASV technology. JohnB you are in good hands. Thank you for sharing that info. Do you ever try adjusting your pressure? Bumping the EPAP up may provide some interesting data.

DreamOn wrote:... Have you tried Pad A Cheek's Anti-Leak Strap for the Quattro and Ultra Mirage full-face masks?: http://padacheek.com/PAC_AntiLeak_Strap.html. It's received some rave reviews by forum members, and I'm thinking it may help you with those Quattro leaks. ...

Thanks. I have not yet tried it. but I have been looking into it. Unfortunately, as you understand, when the brain fog hits, I never remember to try to order it. Sigh! As if the problem tries to stay in possession of us! : ) ... But thank you, I will try to make a point of ordering it. (Write it down. Write it down, Write.. Write what down?!

sleepmba wrote:... Do you ever try adjusting your pressure? Bumping the EPAP up may provide some interesting data. ...

I do both know how to adjust it and have in the past. I ended up at the same point that my titration reached. Higher does not seem to change this issue. It really does seem to be tied to stress in my life. I've talked this one through with my neurologist. My DME had set the EPAP pressure too low. But with it set to the titration value, it seems to do "okay" most of the time. But those "bad" nights are all too predictable. Under stress (of any sort), my body seems to conspire to make things worse. And I do mean ANY sort of stress.

If I go see a movie with a lot of action scenes, I can barely walk out of the theater. Or if I travel via air (and thus have to deal with an airport). Or if I am at some sporting event. Or if I have a particularly bad day at work. Or if I have to go to an office and sit in the "hub ub" all day long. Or if... Problems that surface include problems with balance, coordination, speech, and vision. Balance is an inability to stand upright without falling over. I need to hold only things / use a walking staff to help orient myself. Coordination includes tremors, and things like the inability to reach for a door knob without feeling as if I had too much to drink. Speech issues include slurred speech. I'm often challenged at airports. Flight attendants think I had too much to drink. I have to explain that I have a neurological issue. It's one reason I use a medic alert bracelet. And vision is my most frustrating. My eyes start to jump around. It literally becomes hard for me to see things clearly. Under normal conditions (with no real stress) my eye (I only see out of one eye) with glasses should be correctable to 20/20. But due to nystagmus (due to the other eye having a scar at the focal point), it used to be correctable to 20/35. Unfortunately, due to increased neurological issues it can now only be corrected to 20/50. Oh, and a new trick is problems focusing my eye. As you might guess, due to all of this, I no longer drive.

Those are pretty standard conditions. When I am under stress, I start to develop problems with maintaining my O2 levels during the day and then have LOTS of central apneas at night. Trust me, this is a LOT of fun. I would not wish it on anyone.

So, I wish a bump of the EPAP would work. That would be a great thing. Instead I try to manage as best as possible. As I mentioned earlier, my neurologist cautioned me that involvement of the brain stem tends to cause ongoing sleep issues that are not easily treated.

JohnBFisher wrote:Due to mouth breathing that I could no longer control, I had to shift to a full face mask. The Quattro is what I use. And it's a love / hate relationship. It works well sometimes and horribly the next night. And I've not been completely able to figure out what seems to work and what does not.

So, if you can get your therapy to work without moving to a full face mask, I would do as you are doing. It's not been something I was able to achieve. But hopefully you will be able to make it work.

So far, things look good. My numbers have been about 1 solid point lower (from 2.8-3.0) down to 1.5-1.8 since I started taping. The CA numbers also have dropped. I haven't confirmed this, but I'm beginning to believe that some of the CAs might be "false-positives" that the machine (PR1) thinks are CAs, but really are not.

I'll probably investigate getting a full-face mask for times when I'm stuffed up (allergies/colds), and may try it to see if it works as well as the current Swift FX and taping.

Thanks for the advice/information