up my pressure?

Well I have been on cpap since Thurs. and I am snoring with the mask on. My ahi is 10.9. I would like some feedback if anyone has had this issue and if they upped their own pressure or what they did about it? I called my ENT today, if he calls me back I think that I will be shocked. That office has screwed up quite a bit.

Well, the good news is you are using a FFM so no lost therapy there..... however, snoring is indicative of a too low pressure to stent open the breathing passage. That would probably mean an increase in pressure is in order. Do you have software or use the web based software our forum members have created to monitor your therapy? If you could 'see' what happened overnight, it would allow you to make appropriate adjustments. Depending upon your DME or doctor to be available when things like this crop up is not realistic. They will rarely have time to do that kind of follow-up quickly. Take charge of your own therapy and learn how to change settings and read the data. An knowledgable patient is an empowered patient

cindjo717 wrote:Well I have been on cpap since Thurs. and I am snoring with the mask on. My ahi is 10.9. I would like some feedback if anyone has had this issue and if they upped their own pressure or what they did about it? I called my ENT today, if he calls me back I think that I will be shocked. That office has screwed up quite a bit.

For months my AHI's ranged from 6 to 20. While I'm not a heavy snorer, I''ve noticed myself getting blocked in the back of my throat and mild snoring when falling asleep, and the same has happened in reverse...when exhaling I'd almost have a reverse snore.

After 4 months of this, I finally upped my pressure and for 3 nights I've had an AHI of 3, which is unheard of for me. So, yes, you can up your pressure, just be sure to do it in small increments, and give yourself a few days at each pressure.

Good luck!

It looks like you have an autoset so you can do a self titration. Set the cpap in auto mode from 4-20 and use it for a few weeks. The machine will change pressure automatically and record the average pressure. Then you can Adjust the pressure range down to a normal level once you so what range you need and if it lowers your ahi.

Here is a video that will show you how to change the pressure. If you need any other help email me at cpaplibrary@gmail.com

http://www.cpaplibrary.com/machine-education

Hope this helps,

Dane

Thank you all for your help, I am learning so much. I book marked the video, so I have it in case I want to go in and change something. My doc office did call me back, shocker, he want's to see me, so this Fri. morning.. they mentioned upping the pressure. I also wonder if anyone has ever raised or lowered the function that makes the pause on exhale? I was thinking that maybe my pause is too long and my throat has too much of a chance to close? Not sure about that.

What pressure or pressure range have you been using just for starters? My ENT had an initial rx of 4 - 14, and most of the time I was at the top of that range. I changed it slowly (the lower number is really what you want to concentrate on) but I believe I started with 10 - 20, and then settled in on 13 - 17. Most nights my 95% Pressure is about 14cm, but I have the extra headroom to go higher if needed.

Load up the software as someone suggested and analyze the data. Let the changes sit for about a week to give it time.

CindJo -

Welcome to the board.

The whole CPAP titration thing takes infinite patience and a huge depth of information. It can be daunting, especially when you feel like cr-p because you haven't slept!

For what it's worth, my main advice is to get a handle on the data in your machine. The sleep doctors like to control and titrate the machine, but they're just not there every night and waiting for months between appointments can seem like forever.

Most machines have settings that allow you to fiddle with the settings, and software to tell you what's going on. It's mostly experimentation!

The pressure is of course one of the primary things you can effectively change. Ease it up slowly to see what effect it's having. Most people here seem to like a narrow band between minimum and maximum pressure, but I've started to let the maximum glide upward a bit and that seems to help.

It's been about a year for me, and every night is a new experiment!

I wouldn't do a darn thing between now and Friday >>except<< maybe download some type of the available software to see my nightly numbers. Continue to read all I could about sleep apnea and CPAP equipment. Check out the Sleephead version that is avbl on this site. Its totally free and works great with my CPAP, which is just like yours. Sounds like you have a very conscientious and caring doctor to return your call and make a quick re-visit available to you. Why not let the Professionals handle it at this time, especially since you are new to all this. I wouldn't touch a dial or setting.

cindjo717 wrote:Thank you all for your help, I am learning so much. I book marked the video, so I have it in case I want to go in and change something. My doc office did call me back, shocker, he want's to see me, so this Fri. morning.. they mentioned upping the pressure. I also wonder if anyone has ever raised or lowered the function that makes the pause on exhale? I was thinking that maybe my pause is too long and my throat has too much of a chance to close? Not sure about that.

You're probably talking about Aflex which makes it easier to exhale for some people and some people don't use it at all. Since you're seeing the Dr this week you can put that on your list of questions. That's a patient comfort feature that can be tweaked.

cindjo717 wrote:I also wonder if anyone has ever raised or lowered the function that makes the pause on exhale? I was thinking that maybe my pause is too long and my throat has too much of a chance to close? Not sure about that.

The function you're thinking about doesn't cause a "pause on exhale." It causes a "reduction" in pressure when a person starts to breathe out. It doesn't pause the machine from blowing...it just lowers the pressure somewhat when you start to breathe out.

You're using a Philips Respironics machine. If you have either C-Flex or A-Flex enabled to get some pressure relief when you exhale, you don't have to worry about any of the "flex" settings allowing your throat to close during the pause (the pause in your breathing...not a pause in the machine blowing) before you start to inhale again. A-Flex uses "C-Flex" during exhalation. C-Flex (and A-Flex) let the pressure come back in again before your exhalation is finished. So, you actually are getting your full pressure during any pause in your own breathing.

If a person's throat is able to close at the end of breathing out, or during the pause before starting to inhale again, it's not "C-Flex" (or "A-Flex") that's allowing that to happen. The culprit would most likely be that the minimum pressure setting on your autopap is set too low. If your autopap is set pretty much wide open....say for a range of 4 - 20, or 5 - 20, then raising the minimum pressure several full cms would probably be a good thing to do.

It's when a person is using a ResMed brand of machine with EPR (ResMed's expiratory pressure relief) enabled, that the pressure drop during breathing out stays down, even during the pause before trying to inhale again. EPR could allow a throat to collapse. C-Flex doesn't.

Those two brands use very different ways of handling pressure relief for exhaling:

viewtopic.php?p=436054#p436054


And here are some links to discussions about the importance of the minimum pressure setting in an autopap's range:

Results: 1st night with Auto A-Flex (topic started by TSSleepy)
Two nights graphs posted using pressure range 4 - 20 and 10 - 20
viewtopic.php?p=349073#p349073

November 2008 Just got an APAP (topic started by turbosnore)
viewtopic.php?p=319619#p319619

October 2008 Turning off Aflex and Cflex (topic started by DoriC)
viewtopic.php?p=307265#p307265

September 2008 New Guy - Need Help w/Settings (topic started by alanhj13)
viewtopic.php?p=294319#p294319

Wulfman, DreamStalker, and ozij explain why autopaps make changes slowly.
December 2008 Why adjust APAP. Isn't it auto? (topic started by oxygenium65)
viewtopic.php?p=323218#p323218