Just wanted to intro!

Hey all, just wanted to throw my hat into the community ring and introduce myself, maybe get some similar stories/experiences, etc. I am 33 years old and a Respiratory Therapist a hospital (for 7 years). Followed in my dad's footsteps - who also suffered from OSA and used CPAP. Took me a few years and some self-questioning to finally get in with a sleep doc and get diagnosed officially. My wife, who is also a RT, would often complain of the snoring, in addition to finding me apneic in some instances and my fatigue level was to the point where I was falling asleep on the couch mid-day, going to work living off RockStars and RedBulls. In 2012, my weight was up to 206lbs (I'm 5'10''), blood pressure high 130s/85-90, and just basically feeling like hell. At my follow-up, my doc told me my AHI was in the high 70s and he was really concerned with my lifestyle (working nights, the energy drinks, my wife and I working opposite shifts, etc). At my 2nd study - which my doc used exclusively to dial in my CPAP - I ended up at 15cmH20. He debated on just putting me on BiPAP but let me have some autonomy in deciding with CPAP or BiPAP. Told him I would try CPAP first and have been using it since.

In the following months of using the CPAP, my energy was coming back, my sleep was back, I was able to tolerate using CPAP with no problems. In early 2013, I started getting heart palpitations, remained hypertensive and overweight, heart rate resting in the 80s, and one day I scared myself stiff: thought about my now 3 year old son without his dad. Having lost my dad to melanoma in 2008, thinking of my son affected me deeply. So, I took up running and cycling and completely changed my eating habits. Dropped energy drinks and sodas cold turkey (tea and water exclusively) and took on a "runner's" diet (very occiasional red meat, lots of fish and chicken, tons of veggies and fruits, etc). I used MyFitnessPal to catalog my eating and exercise and from March 2013 to Dec 2013 I went from 206lbs to 160lbs while running 2 half marathons and completing 1 century ride; more importantly my BP was now at 120/80 solid, heart rate resting at 42. My OSA has not withered away, although I have yet to have a follow-up appointment at my current health level (can't wait to see my doc about that!). This has definitely been an eye-opener for me as I've always been on the clinician side of things, not the patient!

I hope to interact with this community in the future and it will be nice to converse with others who can absolutely relate to the rigors of OSA (it truly is life-altering and there is no one answer cure...e.g. losing weight won't necessarily rid you of it forever ) Thanks for reading!

Great story! Congratulations!

One point you did not cover. Are you using one of the softwares to monitor the efficacy of your CPAP treatment?

Walkman,
Welcome to the forum! Very positive and uplifting story....Congratulations! It is not easy to do what you have done!

Keep up the good work and keep us posted!!

Janice

Granny: his machine is a Plus--compliance data only. (Edit--I guess not. What happened?)
I guess it can happen to anyone.
Walkman: Welcome; and get ready to be amazed!

Wow, great intro and inspirational story. You have a lot to share, both professionally and personally . I hope you stay around and get pulled into our little world. Like PAP therapy, this place has been essential to my successful sleep and health improvements . In my opinion, this place and the wisdom, help, understanding, and friendship of its members is priceless; may you find the same thing in your time here

John

Welcome, walkman, good to have you here with us.

Thank you all for the kind words and welcome Having spent my clinical career in the Pediatric ER/Pediatric ICU, I can say I haven't had much experience with chronic OSA patients, so I definitely have a lot to learn. I've already garnered some new learning just from the few threads I have read on here.

I did update my equipment, I actually have the REMStar Auto with A-Flex (model # 550P); my previous machine was the lower end C-Flex. With that said, I actually have downloaded SleepyHead and am trying to import my data but the program tells me "Couldn't find any new machine data to import." I'm trying to import from our home network printer (which has the SD card reader). I am going to try and copy the entire card contents over to my PC and try it that way.

walkman8080 wrote:I actually have downloaded SleepyHead and am trying to import my data but the program tells me "Couldn't find any new machine data to import." I'm trying to import from our home network printer (which has the SD card reader). I am going to try and copy the entire card contents over to my PC and try it that way.

This error is normally just a matter of a person not directing SleepyHead correctly. The most common error is that people want to go into the SD card and look in the P Series folder but that is too far. If anything but the drive letter where the SD card sits is showing in the directory "choose" box then a person has gone too far.
Explained here
viewtopic/t88972/Pugsys-PointersSoftwar ... hints.html

Otherwise to help sort through errors....it helps to know which SleepyHead version and build date along with computer specs.

Pugsy wrote:

walkman8080 wrote:I actually have downloaded SleepyHead and am trying to import my data but the program tells me "Couldn't find any new machine data to import." I'm trying to import from our home network printer (which has the SD card reader). I am going to try and copy the entire card contents over to my PC and try it that way.

This error is normally just a matter of a person not directing SleepyHead correctly. The most common error is that people want to go into the SD card and look in the P Series folder but that is too far. If anything but the drive letter where the SD card sits is showing in the directory "choose" box then a person has gone too far.
Explained here
viewtopic/t88972/Pugsys-PointersSoftwar ... hints.html

Otherwise to help sort through errors....it helps to know which SleepyHead version and build date along with computer specs.

Thanks for the reply, Pugsy. I actually was going to PM you tomorrow as I've seen your excellent tips/hints/knowledge while forum lurking. So, what I did was copy the complete P Series folder from the SD card (which was in my wifi home network printer) to my desktop (PC is custom built - i5 3450, 8GB RAM, Win7 x64 on SSD). After the complete folder copied, I opened SleepyHead (running newest beta version 0.9.3) and clicked 'Import', pointed to the P Series folder and saw that there were 2 sub-folders. After looking at the metadata, it appears one folder was for a previous patient who used the card/device, so I deleted that entire folder only leaving mine (I looked at the "latest.txt" or "last.txt" file under P Series and it had my folder indicated). After pointing it again to the copied P Series directory on my desktop, it imported correctly. There is about 12 months of data (which is when I got the machine). Unfortunately, I had to head into work so I didn't get to go through the data much but I will take a look at it in the morning when I get home.

My doc prescribed a set 15.0cmH2O (in 2012) for me but now that I know I have an auto-adjusting machine I am curious to try it out. My AHI on the machine for 30-day average is 1.7 - and I'd like to know if the 15 is now too much for me, causing central apneas. I'm not really attacking numbers and such but more just curious if I can get below the 15.0 after losing 40lbs Thanks again for the help, I will read the link and post a follow-up.

The PR S1 machine will store any prior user data to its internal memory and keep writing it to the SD card until you also remove it from the machine's memory also. Something to think about.

If you want to make use of the apap mode on your machine after using cpap mode for so long I would suggest that you start with a modest setting range and not go directly to full range experiment mode.
Something like apap mode with minimum 14 and max 15.
Unless of course you can use a much lower starting pressure comfortably.

walkman8080 wrote:- I ended up at 15cmH20. He debated on just putting me on BiPAP but let me have some autonomy in deciding with CPAP or BiPAP. Told him I would try CPAP first and have been using it since.

Is the Bipap still an option? If so I would try to upgrade since your titration is 15 which is usually the cutoff for selecting a bipap. You might not need it but if the offer is still there I'd take it. My husband technically doesn't need a bipap(his titration is 13) but he's much more comfortable with it and gets better results. Good luck and keep us posted.