Pressure Setting

I will be getting my new machine which is a PR DS550. This machine is a APAP and my current CPAP machine is a PR DS250 which has the pressure set at 12. What would I need to set up my machine with (pressure)? Low - High range? I hope this makes sense. Thanks.

it goes against alot of forum thinking, but my doc told me to set my 12 at 8-12, not 2 above and 2 below. i've found that i seldom if ever get to 12, mostly spending time in the 9-10 range. wherever you set it, leave it alone for at least a week to see how it goes.

I would use a pressure setting that is real close to what I have been using because that is what my body is used to.
This would lessen the chance of the difference in pressure used being disruptive..
I can tell you right now that if you are used to 12 cm...if you start out at 8 cm minimum you may feel the difference and it probably will be uncomfortable. I did some playing with pressures up to 13 and when I went back down to 10 I made a sudden drop and it was uncomfortable for several days till I adjusted to the 10 again.

Just because you can use a range now doesn't mean that you have to do it all at once. At this point you don't know one way or another if your 12 cm pressure is optimal or not because you have zero data right now. You have to start somewhere..why not started with what you have been using and see what the reports look like and then evaluate and decide what changes you want to make.

Now if you were brand new to cpap therapy..yeah give yourself a range to work within but your body is used to straight cpap of 12...if you want to make adjustments...do them slowly to lessen chance that the changes are disruptive to sleep quality.

In your situation...I would start off with a really tight range and look at the reports and then make some gradual adjustments. How tight? I would use 11 min and 13 max.
Though it won't hurt anything to use 8 / 12 or 8 / 14 or 10 /14 or 9 /13 or heck 10 /20 as long as you are able to feel comfortable at the different starting pressures.

Hi,

Follow what Pugsy is saying. Then, over time, watch your 95% number. If the 95% number is close to your lower pressure, then you can try adjusting the lower number down. If the 95% number is close to the higher number, then you might want to adjust the upper number upwards. Try to keep the lower number 1 or 2 cm below that magic 95% level, and keep the upper number high enough that you are not maxing out on a regular basis.

Another aspect of this is that you seem to be well used to running at a fixed pressure. Some folks do better on a fixed pressure. If you are not feeling as well when running auto mode, you can always set your machine to a fixed pressure. At any rate, give the settings a week to 10 days to establish a trend before doing the next tweak. Results can vary a lot from day to day, so one or two days isn't really enough to tell for sure if a change made a difference.

-john-