New user, many questions :)

Well, got my first night's sleep on the S9 yesterday. I slept from 1am till 10 am. I really felt pretty good this morning. It was my day off, but my numbers from the machine aren't that great. So, I'll just have to keep monitoring and see what happens. I woke up one time with the nasal part of the mask on my forehead.....I immediately started laughing and trying to figure out how that happened. I think I might have had way too much leakage, also. Still learning how to read the sleepyhead and resscan data.
AHI 19.1

My AHI looked really, really low all night till about an hour from when I woke up and it shot all the way up to 120. Not sure what happened there. Any comments or suggestions with the software please send my way. I'm an reading all of the internet to try to understand all the terms. Can't wait till I have more data to evaluate.

Also, this is the first night in months I haven't woken up and had to go to the bathroom and my mouth wasn't so dry that it woke me up from chocking. I'm so glad for this!!!

Wow, sounds like you're one of the lucky ones who will be happy from the start. Not everyone is.

herefishy wrote:Wow, sounds like you're one of the lucky ones who will be happy from the start. Not everyone is.

I truly believe that. I've been suffering with this for years. It was such a relief to actually feel pretty comfortable with the equipment. I can't wait for my numbers to improve.

I suspect that the last really ugly hour you were probably awake/semi awake and probably tossing and turning.
Ignore it for now. Concentrate on just getting used to sleeping with the mask and machine.

The machine can and will flag awake breathing irregularities as some sort of apnea event because it doesn't know if you are asleep or not.

Can you turn off the AHI graph and the mask pressure graph and bring the leak graph into view?
I see some green apneas being flagged....normally we don't see those unless the leak is rather large...green apneas are unknown apneas where the machine doesn't know what to call them and usually it is because of leaks.

See if you can manipulate the graphs so we can see the events graph..the flow graph...the pressure graph and the leak graph all in one image.
The graphs can also be resized...just hover mouse on the bottom line of the graph till you see a little short double line then click and drag to resize. SleepyHead will remember.
Unneeded graphs can be turned off in Preferences (under File top left) and the graphs tab.

Pugsy wrote: See if you can manipulate the graphs so we can see the events graph..the flow graph...the pressure graph and the leak graph all in one image.
The graphs can also be resized...just hover mouse on the bottom line of the graph till you see a little short double line then click and drag to resize. SleepyHead will remember.
Unneeded graphs can be turned off in Preferences (under File top left) and the graphs tab.

I hope I got the right ones for ya. It looks like my mask might have been loose on part of the night. Thanks for the help and insight, very new to this. I just learned this week how to take a screenshot on my Mac from you. I'm still not quite sure what are good numbers for mask leak, and some of the other graphs. Seems like my numbers from last night were a little better.

Might want to also go into Preferences again.....click on "Appearance" then uncheck...."Show event breakdown pie chart" so the left side of the Statistics of yours will look more like this..

Yep, that works.
As I suspected you had a massive leak during the times where the green apneas were flagged. The leak was so bad that a bunch of apneas materialized due to ineffective pressure.
The Centrals that last hour nearing wake up time...I bet you were partially awake but let's just watch things to see if with time and experience your sleep gets more consistent. If you are spending large times awake thinking about sleeping...turn the machine off or on so we can get a break in therapy line to maybe explain some of the clutter.

For point of reference with your S9 machine your large leak territory begins at 24 L/min line...above that line and the machine starts losing ability to sense and record things. It doesn't get really bad till you get over 35 or so.
So your goal is to try to stay below 24 L/min leak line....a brief short lived spike isn't the end of the world though.

Using SleepyHead with the way the graph's scale works it can sometimes be hard to see if you spent much time above 24 L/min line. As you get the leaks managed better the scale should reduce so you can see better.

So for now just your main job is get used to the mask and machine and work on leaks.

Pugsy wrote:Yep, that works.
As I suspected you had a massive leak during the times where the green apneas were flagged. The leak was so bad that a bunch of apneas materialized due to ineffective pressure.
The Centrals that last hour nearing wake up time...I bet you were partially awake but let's just watch things to see if with time and experience your sleep gets more consistent. If you are spending large times awake thinking about sleeping...turn the machine off or on so we can get a break in therapy line to maybe explain some of the clutter.

For point of reference with your S9 machine your large leak territory begins at 24 L/min line...above that line and the machine starts losing ability to sense and record things. It doesn't get really bad till you get over 35 or so.
So your goal is to try to stay below 24 L/min leak line....a brief short lived spike isn't the end of the world though.

Using SleepyHead with the way the graph's scale works it can sometimes be hard to see if you spent much time above 24 L/min line. As you get the leaks managed better the scale should reduce so you can see better.

So for now just your main job is get used to the mask and machine and work on leaks.

Thanks! I really do like the mask, but I'm still kinda moving from side to side a lot at night, so I know the mask is losing contact somehow. I usually wake up and then try to go back to sleep for another hours or so. I think that is showing the graph, like you said. I tell you, I feel so much better, and my numbers aren't the best yet. I can't wait to see how I feel once things start falling into place more. Thanks again for the knowledge and I will keep updating this thread as I learn and see better things happening!

PS I'm so thrilled that I'm not waking up and going to the bathroom at night, and waking up with a dry mouth, snoring and chocking. It's amazing!

Wow, you are set Armand, now the quest for the perfect mask and some fine tuning. You should be feeling much better very soon.

Cuda wrote:Wow, you are set Armand, now the quest for the perfect mask and some fine tuning. You should be feeling much better very soon.

I would say I feel at least 50% better now. I'm so amazed of this machine. I wish I'd have done it years ago. I really like the mask I have now. I think if I would stop tossing and turning, I'd have no leaks with it. Can't wait for the next round of feeling better!!!

ArmandXP wrote:

Cuda wrote:Wow, you are set Armand, now the quest for the perfect mask and some fine tuning. You should be feeling much better very soon.

I would say I feel at least 50% better now. I'm so amazed of this machine. I wish I'd have done it years ago. I really like the mask I have now. I think if I would stop tossing and turning, I'd have no leaks with it. Can't wait for the next round of feeling better!!!

I had the same experience when I started CPAP. Before CPAP, I was getting up almost every hour, on the hour. After CPAP that reduced to once or twice a night. After I did a little fine tuning on the machine it's quite common for me not to get up at all during the night now ... even if I wake up, I don't feel the urge. That is SO cool. I'm 50+ and was beginning to think this was just another wonderful fact about getting older. Glad that wasn't the case!

Well, just got a call from my DME and my insurance company is requiring them to connect the wireless module to check for compliance for three months. What a waste of money. I guess some people may need it, but I promise I won't. I love my machine. I wonder if they will check to see if I change any of the settings (I turned on the EPR, because it wasn't set up), or if I adjust my pressure. Kinda scary. Anyone had this done to them? Just curious. Now I have to clean my room before tomorrow....

Hello ArmandXP,

I've been trying to get back to this thread to see how things are going and it looks like you're doing quite well. Awesome!

One of the things you mention as a benefit, is no longer having excessive restroom breaks throughout the night.

That I have read, the reason for this is that when a person tries to breath against a closed upper airway it creates a slight vacuum in their chest. This causes the entrance chambers, the atria, of the heart to distend or stretch. This streching normally occurs when we have too much fluid in our blood, but in the case of sleep apnea, the stretching is artificially produced and sends a natriuretic to your kidneys to produce urine. With pressure therapy, viola, fewer trips to sharpen your ice skates.

Keep posting your progress, way to go!

Jim

ArmandXP wrote:I wonder if they will check to see if I change any of the settings (I turned on the EPR, because it wasn't set up), or if I adjust my pressure.

Your insurance won't care about anything other than hours of use. They won't be looking at anything other than compliance hours of use. They don't do any evaluation of the other data that is collected.
Unless your DME looks real closely at the summary data he collects with the modem...I doubt he will even notice.
EPR is a comfort feature anyway and it is considered to be something that a patient should have access to.
Changing pressure they might get upset about if they notice it but it would be more because you knew how to do it than the fact that you did it.