New apap higher AHI & apap doesn't seem to be trying :(

herefishy wrote:Could you try your old machine for a while and nail it down the the new one?

Unfortunately not. It went to the garbage when the new one arrived. I have a 10-year-old even more ancient Respironics cpap as a backup but when I tried reading it's SmartCard with EncoreViewer, it just gave me an error message. Good thought, though.

France

Dreamrobot wrote:I use th intellipap, and find it true it's not aggressive in cranking up the pressures. That is actually the reason I found useful when I tried the auto as it does not run away for me like the older remstar resp I have ( i suffer terribly with increased pressures). Even just half a point will make the difference between my machines on straight pap. Hope you find the right pressure to get relief of your symptoms,
Dreamrobot

Thanks Dreamrobot. When I first tried an apap, it was a borrowed one from my DME and the bottom pressure was set too low so it jumped around all night and kept me awake so I guess I'm pretty sensitive to the changes too.

Remstar! That's what I think my 10-year-old ancient Respironics was called but it was just a cpap, not an auto. It was my first treatment for sleep apnea and I only discovered this cpaptalk.com forum a couple of years later.

I'll really have to think about what I'm going to do because I really don't like feeling this way.
France

Pugsy wrote:Thank you mollete. I remember now...snores. That along with the criteria difference for hyponea count is going to let a person end up with a few more hyponeas than maybe the other machines with a little more % reduction needed to make criteria seems to explain the seemingly extra number of hyponeas.
I was thinking of "clubbing" them to death maybe to see if their presence explains the the general not so great feeling.
Going out on the proverbial limb trying to find maybe an answer.
Hyponea count is not horrible but maybe related to poor quality of sleep....of course there is that long list of other stuff that might also be a factor in poor quality sleep as well as feeling less than optimal the next day.

Hmm, not sure I understand. You and mollete both have a LOT of knowledge about all of this and I appreciate the two of you very much.

It could very well be that something is causing my poor sleep but the apap is pretty much the only thing that's changed lately so that's why I was starting there.

France

If you had been telling us that you feel great...sleep great...and asking "do I worry about the number of hyponeas?" then I would say "no..there really isn't an excessive number of hyponeas and since you are feeling great...if it ain't broke..don't fix it".
But you say you feel bad and the only thing that we see on the report is maybe more hyponeas which are scored aggressively by nature of the Devilbiss 40% reduction in flow as opposed to say Respironics 50% of a reduction in flow.
Meaning a 45% reduction in flow wouldn't be flagged on a Respironics machine and would be flagged on the Devilbiss.
So the event criteria definition for the Devilbiss means it will likely flag more hyponeas than the Respironics would but it won't do anything about them unless there is marked snoring going on. Respironics might be more aggressive in its response to snores as an indication of flow reduction.

So the 2 machines have 2 different ways of looking at things...and each one of course thinks its way is the "right" way.
If you were feeling great..hey then it doesn't matter but you aren't feeling so great and it may or may not be something related to sleep apnea and/or therapy. We all would like to lump every ailment we have in the sleep apnea basket and let the cpap machine fix it but often what ails us doesn't below in the sleep apnea basket.

Looking at your report...the hyponeas are the only thing that stands out and they may or may not be a problem.
Even then I use the term "stand out" really loosely and go out on a limb thinking maybe they are part of the problem. It's a stretch I know but it is all I can see that might remotely explain some of your problems. Would "clubbing" those few hyponeas resolve your issues? Probably not, in all honesty, but trying a little more minimum pressure just to see what might happen would be something I would probably have to try if I were in your shoes...just to give it a chance that maybe what ails me could be lumped in the sleep apnea basket and fixed before I started taking a hard look at all the other possible causes for not feeling as good as the reports say we should feel. But that's me and you are you and the end result is you have to decide what is best for you to do and what fulfills your needs.
I wouldn't totally ignore other possible factors though...I would start with the usual stuff while experimenting with clubbing those few hyponeas to death.
Remember....the cpap machine can't fix bad sleep or crappy feeling if the bad sleep and crappy feeling is from something other than sleep apnea. If it was that easy we wouldn't have so many people with the cpap machine sitting in the closet because "I don't feel any better" excuse when the probable cause for crappy feeling is something other than sleep apnea.

Pugsy wrote:If you had been telling us that you feel great...sleep great...and asking "do I worry about the number of hyponeas?" then I would say "no..there really isn't an excessive number of hyponeas and since you are feeling great...if it ain't broke..don't fix it".
But you say you feel bad and the only thing that we see on the report is maybe more hyponeas which are scored aggressively by nature of the Devilbiss 40% reduction in flow as opposed to say Respironics 50% of a reduction in flow.
Meaning a 45% reduction in flow wouldn't be flagged on a Respironics machine and would be flagged on the Devilbiss.
So the event criteria definition for the Devilbiss means it will likely flag more hyponeas than the Respironics would but it won't do anything about them unless there is marked snoring going on. Respironics might be more aggressive in its response to snores as an indication of flow reduction.

So the 2 machines have 2 different ways of looking at things...and each one of course thinks its way is the "right" way.
If you were feeling great..hey then it doesn't matter but you aren't feeling so great and it may or may not be something related to sleep apnea and/or therapy. We all would like to lump every ailment we have in the sleep apnea basket and let the cpap machine fix it but often what ails us doesn't below in the sleep apnea basket.

Looking at your report...the hyponeas are the only thing that stands out and they may or may not be a problem.
Even then I use the term "stand out" really loosely and go out on a limb thinking maybe they are part of the problem. It's a stretch I know but it is all I can see that might remotely explain some of your problems. Would "clubbing" those few hyponeas resolve your issues? Probably not, in all honesty, but trying a little more minimum pressure just to see what might happen would be something I would probably have to try if I were in your shoes...just to give it a chance that maybe what ails me could be lumped in the sleep apnea basket and fixed before I started taking a hard look at all the other possible causes for not feeling as good as the reports say we should feel. But that's me and you are you and the end result is you have to decide what is best for you to do and what fulfills your needs.
I wouldn't totally ignore other possible factors though...I would start with the usual stuff while experimenting with clubbing those few hyponeas to death.
Remember....the cpap machine can't fix bad sleep or crappy feeling if the bad sleep and crappy feeling is from something other than sleep apnea. If it was that easy we wouldn't have so many people with the cpap machine sitting in the closet because "I don't feel any better" excuse when the probable cause for crappy feeling is something other than sleep apnea.

I might bring up the minimum a bit -- what would you suggest? perhaps 0.5 cm? 1 cm? -- and see if it makes any difference. Definitely have to try to look at other stuff but not sure what suddenly started happening a couple of months ago but I'll definitely give it serious thought.

Thanks
France

frapilu wrote:I might bring up the minimum a bit -- what would you suggest? perhaps 0.5 cm? 1 cm?

At this stage I would take tiny steps if it were me especially since you are already up there in pressure minimum.
So I would start with 0.5 cm if I was going to try it. Give it a week...see how things go then maybe another 0.5 cm if it seems to be warranted.
I know of several forum members that say they feel better using a couple of cms higher pressure than they probably "need" to use based on the software reports but they are going on how they feel.
I tried it myself way back during first year of therapy...was using 10 minimum and max 20 on the APAP...so I worked my way up to 13 minimum going up 0.5 cm a week over several weeks. I saw zero difference in my reports and zero difference in how I felt overall. My big break through for how I felt was when I happened to try a bilevel machine. I am still scratching my head over that one but that's why I am using bilevel now.

Pugsy wrote:

frapilu wrote:I might bring up the minimum a bit -- what would you suggest? perhaps 0.5 cm? 1 cm?

At this stage I would take tiny steps if it were me especially since you are already up there in pressure minimum.
So I would start with 0.5 cm if I was going to try it. Give it a week...see how things go then maybe another 0.5 cm if it seems to be warranted.
I know of several forum members that say they feel better using a couple of cms higher pressure than they probably "need" to use based on the software reports but they are going on how they feel.
I tried it myself way back during first year of therapy...was using 10 minimum and max 20 on the APAP...so I worked my way up to 13 minimum going up 0.5 cm a week over several weeks. I saw zero difference in my reports and zero difference in how I felt overall. My big break through for how I felt was when I happened to try a bilevel machine. I am still scratching my head over that one but that's why I am using bilevel now.

Yes, I'll try that. Thanks very much for all your help. Tonight I'll bring it up to 15.5 and give it a week to see.

Thanks again
France