New to CPAP...making right decisions?

90% pressure keeps gettting up to 10.5 every night. How long should i leave it on auto, and switch back to CPAP? I think i prefer the CPAP over the auto, just want to make sure the pressure is right

mikelh83 wrote:90% pressure keeps gettting up to 10.5 every night. How long should i leave it on auto, and switch back to CPAP? I think i prefer the CPAP over the auto, just want to make sure the pressure is right

Take the modem off and slip the SD card in the SD card slot (you can leave it in the slot and replace the modem...won't hurt a thing). Then you can use the software to evaluate the data that is recorded onto the SD card. Sleepyhead will work just fine. Look on the bottom of your blower unit and if it says 560...you will need the 60 series patch..explained in this thread.
viewtopic/t83551/SleepyHead-Series-60-Patch-Avail.html
If it says 550 you don't need the patch file.
I have Sleepyhead information links in my signature line here at the bottom of this post.

You can also use EncoreBasic software..you can find information on where to download it in Uncle Bob's signature line
memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=38643
Read the help section in Basic for instructions on how to use the software.

When you put the SD card into the SD card slot on the machine...the machine will write the data that is stored on the machine's internal memory to the SD card. It won't contain the wave form graphs though because the SD card must be in the machine over night to gather that data. All other data will be available though. You can remove the modem long enough to put the SD card in the slot or remove it to use the software and then put things back together. Won't hurt modem's ability at all.

The machine's LCD screen is reporting the 90% pressure. This 90% number means the machine used this pressure OR below for 90% of the night. People tend to forget the OR BELOW part of the definition. If you were wanting to use straight CPAP mode then this 90% number is probably very close to what you would want to use in cpap mode. You would really want to evaluate the actual detailed reports from the software to get a good idea how often (or how long) you might need that 11 cm pressure.

During my titration sleep study I only got 156 minutes of sleep (bad night) and my prescribed pressure was 8 cm and that wasn't quite what I ended up needing. I happen to need more pressure during REM sleep and I didn't have very much REM sleep during the titration study. So you may do well at 7 for part of the night but need more at other times. I ended up needing 10 cm and when using APAP mode I found I sometimes hit 18 cm (I assume REM sleep). Sometimes my 90% pressures were around 12 cm and sometimes they were 16 cm...I sure wouldn't want to use 16 all the time so I use auto adjusting mode.
If I wanted to use cpap mode I would probably use 11 or 12.
Sometimes the titration sleep studies do a good job and sometimes they just are limited...depends on any number of things.

Get the software and educate yourself on what is going on so that you can make educated and informed decisions on the best way to optimize your therapy. If you prefer cpap mode that is just fine...you may or may not need to make a few compromises.