If you were me ... ?

Pugsy, Yes I went back to sleep, must have just got lucky! My nose was sore though right in the middle at the bottom, I had anticipated that so I used a very small amount Lanisnoh on my nose prior to going to bed...

Gumby, these are second hand masks, and the larges are not here, so I used the "cradle" instead the pillows that go with the OptiLife.

Since my nose is still sore, I decided to play with the Proformatrak at nap time ... found out that it must be missing a small section of hose that has the vent in it! I;m a slow learner though, as I took a few minutes fighting with it! I then switched to a ResMed Mirage Micro nasal, and got that to seal, and actually went to sleep!

From my nap:


Leak seems more stable, of course it is less than an hour!

123.Shawn T.W. wrote:Leak seems more stable, of course it is less than an hour!

Yes, leak is more stable, much more stable and also none of that other clutter showed up either. That last hour looks great.

Yes, the problem with getting second hand masks is that often you don't get all the original sizes and sometimes tiny parts are missing.
The mask is really the hardest part to all this therapy.

Holy Shit!

My observation. Slow down Shawn! lol

Just going from my limited experience but much prior and current reading and advice given here on the boards and mainly based on your OP as I haven't read every response closely but:

Why are you so quick in making pressure adjustments? (I thought we were indicated to give it a week or so to get true data gathered)

Why such drastic pressure adjustments over 1cm? (That was the advise I was given and have followed religiously is no more than a 1cm increase per adjustment and sometimes as little as .5)

Changing masks so often already? (Again, unless something is gouging your face or keeping you up all night, give the mask at least a week, maybe longer, to adapt to it and have a fair way of reviewing it)

You can't fix things over night no matter how hard we might want to. Hell, I'm 60+ days in and am still tweaking slowly but surely...

PS: Don't let avi into this thread or I'll get bitched at for being a 'newb' giving another 'newb' advice....

Peace & truck it Up! whoot whoot....

lazer wrote:Changing masks so often already? (Again, unless something is gouging your face or keeping you up all night, give the mask at least a week, maybe longer, to adapt to it and have a fair way of reviewing it)

In this situation it was me who strongly advised trying multiple masks right now. His first choice was the Quattro which is hard for a newbie anyway and especially hard to seal with a beard. All that ugly clutter and stuff that looks so horrible on the reports...I was hoping that it was poor sleep related to poorly fitted mask disrupting sleep. I think he tried it several nights.
I saw no sense in continuing to use a mask that he says he fiddles with for a good bit of the night and the leak line was all over the place and no where near what his vent rate at his pressure should be. It simply wasn't working. Sometimes we know real quick if something won't work and no sense in wasting time right now fiddling with it.

We can't evaluate the other data till we get good solid sleep with a decent leak line.
Trying to fix the mask issue needed to be done anyway. The Quattro wasn't working out well at all.
So I suggested trying all that he had handy to see if we could get a decent leak line and then evaluate the other stuff. Mainly I wanted him to be able to try a nasal pillow mask because it is easiest to get and keep a good seal. Less chance for sleep disruptions. Unfortunately the nasal pillows he has are too small.
So yes, we are in experiment mode here and not into giving him a lot of time with each trying to mess with it.
I figure try them...pick the best of what he has and then work on perfecting it.

You know there are always exceptions to the rule. If his reports hadn't been so awful looking and his leak line so awful looking...yeah give things time but in this situation....drastic measures.

123.Shawn T.W. wrote:Gumby, these are second hand masks, and the larges are not here, so I used the "cradle" instead the pillows that go with the OptiLife.

So I would think that you now know you need the size you did NOT get or larger? With nasal pillows it's go BIG or stay home

I have no clue what using "the "cradle" instead the pillows that go with the OptiLife." means cuz I haven't used that one I don't think anyway.

Ya know, I wonder why the sleep lab never documented any centrals at all. What's up with that? To save yourself some time you might want to consider another titration.

While they did indicated leg movements that could resolve with a good titration.

Unless we hear from Ms123 we may never know if/when you stop dancing in your sleep.

The Optilife cradle is this. I have used the Optilife (headgear sucks) and thought about the cradle but the headgear is so awfully hard to adjust that I didn't even want to try the cradle and not many people had anything nice to say about the cradle. The nasal pillows are nice though. If the cradle doesn't fit just perfect it is going to slide all over the place and the head gear is just a PITA to adjust. I am not sure it would work well even with the correct size.

123.Shawn T.W. wrote:Here is my Original sleep study:


So you can see I was originally (untreated) having centrals

And my titration:

Gumby, this was posted a ways back, they did originally note my centrals ...

I'm gonna use the ResMed Mirage Micro Nasal mask tonight ... And see if I can get my leaks under control ... I was using the Quattro because that is what came in the bag which the lady who met me at the truck top had with it, lucky for me it was not a small!

I used the Mirrage Quattro for seven nights, then last night those cradle things, which my wife woke me up because the leak was bothering HER! And bothered my nose.

Can't wait till the sun goes down!

123.Shawn T.W. wrote:So you can see I was originally (untreated) having centrals

My mistake - So you are not having centrals because of pressure then tho pressure did make the centrals increase yet you never found a pressure to treat the hypops. Is that a fair statement?

You are certainly more complex than any training or experience I have.

I understand why you are in a rush but you would do much better to choose a doc & lab who specialize in centrals, IMO.

You may get to a therapeutic pressure on your own but I think it will take time and patience. Time as in months. Patience as in painful experiments.

As for your titration - did they not have enuff time during your in lab test to titrate the pressure any higher is that why they never went any higher?

They had over 411 minutes to do my titration ... Why they chose to stop at 7 I have no idea ...

I'm now waiting for my ins to get me the machine I have a Rx for, and see what I can get for a mask, instead of using hand-me/downs that may not be the best fit, don't get me wrong ... I enjoy being able to get something that won't work for somebody else, and try it my self at a deep discount too!

My goal is to get a handle on this so I can quit this job I have (and ins) and get one that gets me closer to home and more often, plus pays more money! Werner is not known for overpaying their drivers, and there computers will drive a sane guy batty! This is/was just a stepping stone job ... I started driving back in 1992 but got off the big road in 98 after getting married, and drove small propane and gas delivery trucks, even school bus for three years! But then none of the over the road companies would hire me because there insurance companies dictates how recent the experience needs to be!

By the time it was time for bed my nose was all stuffed up, i DID try the Mirage Micro, but just could not breathe through it, I tried for a few minutes it seemed ... I switched to the Mirage Quattro, and this is what we see:


Here is a zoom in of a time I was definitely asleep,and my leaks were behaving themselves!


I need to get packing my bags & truck and get ready to head out somewhere ...

Horribly fragmented sleep. Leak line is improved somewhat compared to the other nights. It's obvious a bunch of the clutter is likely awake or semi awake stuff being flagged. Some of it isn't though and it is real hard to know which is what.

What is the status of the DME supplied machine? Are you going to use it or just use the one you bought?
When are you going to be able to use the DME to get you a mask after a proper mask fitting?
Do you have a follow up visit scheduled yet with your sleep doctor?

DME said it could be up to 14 days to get approval for a straight buy (as I don't want to rent) then two days

No apt w/Dr yet, and I have only seen my GP, I think I need to ha e him refer me to specialist ... As he doesn't seem to know much about this ...

And yes, once I get my 60 I plan to use it, and this 50 will be a spare.

This thread is getting so long that I don't have the time to go back and look for things like ......... are you taking prescription sleep meds? No polysomnography expert here -- but I would imagine that drug-induced sleep would play havoc with fragmented sleep and/or CAs.

One man's opinion

Okay,
Once you get your machine from the DME and use it then they will also have access to the data that gets generated and get the reports to the appropriate doctor and if that is your GP then likely get the ball rolling for follow up with a sleep doctor to get his input about what we see going on.

In the meantime, let's still work on trying to get you to have less fragmented sleep so the chances of having so much awake/semi awake clutter messing up your reports are decreased.

You are back on the road now...so you don't take anything now that would impact sleep do you? Or do you still take the Ativan?
Any other meds? Even over the counter stuff? If I remember right you don't take much of anything...no unusual caffeine products...no soda...mainly only drink water...have never smoked...I would assume that you don't chew tobacco either.

Were you comfortable enough with the Optilife that if you had a large nasal pillow for it that you think you might like it?
I have used the Optilife and the headgear sucks IMHO.
How about the Swift FX...if you had a Large nasal pillow do you think it would work?