APAP forcing me to breathe more than I want

[Night Warrior]

Fellow warriors of the night,

Please help! I'm 4 nights into APAP (Resmed Airsense 10) and I'm getting some centrals. These terrible nights, I barely sleep: just as I'm falling asleep, I breathe less frequently, my APAP puts out several oscillating puffs that I'm guessing was designed to get me to take a breath. But I don't want to...I'm finally nodding off. So I've been fighting my machine because I really don't breathe as much when I sleep.

Is there an algorithm that has already determined my ideal # of breaths per minute? Can this be re-programmed? I finally fell asleep around 5am this morning for an hour, with the machine relenting and serving up my cadence of breath. Today, Resmed's myair app was annoyingly texting me some "silver badge" of honor for sticking with the therapy. But I'm honestly terrified of going to sleep with APAP tonight due to sleep deprivation.

Advice greatly appreciated...

[TASmart]

Which of the AIrsence 10 models are you using?

[Night Warrior]

Autoset

[Goofproof]

APAP's are not ventilators, they don't force you to breath at all, maybe your body doesn't know how to breath, breathing is controlled by your brain. Jim

[RogerSC]

Wow, you got a lot of aliases *smile*.

Your cpap is supposed to follow your breathing pace. I know that mine does...if I hold my breath, though, I get some background puffing. But it's very low level, and doesn't really affect me. You can see that I have an S9 AutoSet, though, not the next one.

[palerider]

... I breathe less frequently, my APAP puts out several oscillating puffs that I'm guessing was designed to get me to take a breath.

that's not the machine trying to get you to take a breath, your machine doesn't do that.

what you're feeling is the machine trying to figure out whether you're having a central, or obstructive apnea, if it doesn't sense a breath for 6 seconds or more, it starts a 1cm 4hz pressure oscillation (called "FOT") to see if your airway is open or not, if it is, it does nothing, if it's not open, it'll raise the pressure.

Is there an algorithm that has already determined my ideal # of breaths per minute? Can this be re-programmed?.

no, and no.

[Pugsy]

I breathe less frequently, my APAP puts out several oscillating puffs that I'm guessing was designed to get me to take a breath.

No apaps don't work that way. What you are probably feeling is the FOT (Forced Occillation Technique) trying to figure out what is going on if you aren't moving the air. It's a 1 cm puff repeated several times and used by the machine to try to determine if the airway is open or closed.
http://www.resmed.com/us/en/healthcare- ... ology.html

It's explained in the manual page 7 or 8 I think it is
https://sleep.tnet.com/home/files/resme ... -guide.pdf

Is there an algorithm that has already determined my ideal # of breaths per minute? Can this be re-programmed?

This AirSense 10 AutoSets don't breathe for you at all...there's no set numbers of breaths (that would involve a totally different type of machine).

Do you have SleepyHead...if not, get it.
https://sleep.tnet.com/equipment
Let's see if you are having a truckload of centrals that are bouncing you out of sleep.
On SleepyHead...centrals are called Clear Airway.
Start by looking at the data that is gathered and go from there.

Do you have a copy of your sleep study? If so, did it show any centrals? If not, get a copy...you need it anyway.

[Night Warrior]

I just downloaded Sleepyhead SW & have an SD card from last night, but none of my 3 electronics (old laptop, Surface tablet, and Chrome notebook) have an SD slot that I can find. Do you know if I can wirelessly get data off my APAP or use a cable?

[Goofproof]

I just downloaded Sleepyhead SW & have an SD card from last night, but none of my 3 electronics (old laptop, Surface tablet, and Chrome notebook) have an SD slot that I can find. Do you know if I can wirelessly get data off my APAP or use a cable?

You can buy a SD Card to USB adaptor. some SD cards come with them (NewEgg) Jim

[Pugsy]

One option...does one of your computers have a USB port? If so you can get a cheap generic SD card reader/adapter and make use of the USB port to get the contents of the SD card onto your computer.
Otherwise there is the WiFi option but it involves a very special WiFi SD card...go back to the link to SleepyHead and look at the bottom of the page for wireless transfer information.

In the meantime there is some data on the machine's LCD screen.
Go back to that manual I sent you the link to and read up on how to go into the clinical setup menu and make one change in one of the settings.
Most likely "Essentials" is set for "usage" and you need to change it to "Plus".
You will get AHI plus event category breakdown (have to go to another screen in essentials) and it will give you some idea what is going on.
All explained in the manual.

[Night Warrior]

Thanks Jim, I'll get a cheap adaptor on Amazon.

Thanks Pugsy, I've been tooling around the clinical setup to narrow my pressure range. I'll look at the manual link you sent to get a better view of the data. I swear, the limited data view presented on the user screen is to avoid scaring away new users, right? But I'm a new user who wants to know precisely how the machine and it's algorithms work.

[Goofproof]

Thanks Jim, I'll get a cheap adaptor on Amazon.

Thanks Pugsy, I've been tooling around the clinical setup to narrow my pressure range. I'll look at the manual link you sent to get a better view of the data. I swear, the limited data view presented on the user screen is to avoid scaring away new users, right? But I'm a new user who wants to know precisely how the machine and it's algorithms work.

make sure to get the correct size, I think there are 3 sizes for all the cards. Jim
might be able to buy local faster. Should be cheap!

[D.H.]

My DreamStation Auto does a similar thing. While I know that they're happened from Sleepy Head, I never noticed them as they seem to only happen when I'm asleep.

If you've got the ramp engaged, you might try to disengage it, start at a higher pressure, and/or reduce the ramp-up time. It may be that you're experiencing respiratory distress as a result of the initial pressure being inadequate.

[Night Warrior]

Thanks xxyzx,

That's it precisely. I'm looking for the machine to adapt to me with some data & intelligence behind the ideal RR for me. Resmed Airsense 10 keeps shoving down with air *just when* I'm finally falling asleep.

Do you know why it forces 15 RR no matter what? Which ASV are you using now, and please let me know how your new machine deals with centrals. I'm so bleeping destroyed from my experience so far. How could empirical experimentation get so wild in the night

[Night Warrior]

RogerSC,

I wish I had the time and wherewithal to post under so many aliases =) The board automatically assigns a gazillion aliases if I'm not fully registered. I finally registered Night Warrior and my snafus include typing so fast that I mis-spelled my alias name the 1st time round. Now, everything is showing up in Japanese! If I get more sleep soon, fix that too.