New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
richac
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New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by richac » Thu Mar 08, 2018 10:23 am

Hello all, I finally got my new dreamstation auto cpap machine a few days ago. I had a resmed machine a year ago, but there was something wrong with it, i had to keep unplugging it to get it working. Then the dme gave me another one that kept shaking the mask on my face so I stopped treatment only after a few months. I found out on these forums that resmed does a different type of FOT pulses then dreamstation. And they were right, this dreamstation does not have the same problem. That resmed would shake when I would exchale because I was not breathing out enough. Since then I did find out i have lung disease and do have problems breathing out after doing a pft test. So i've been requesting a dreamstation. Took a year for me to find out I had to go back to the same dme after I kept getting denied by other dme's, cause insurance authorization department said I was with the original dme already for 3 months. But Now I have my machine.

I've always had bad sleeping. Swollen uvular gland in morning when laying on back from snoring so loud. for the last year very high blood pressure and dizzyness, pressure in head, hard to move eyes, from lack of sleep. I also have high anxiety that i'm not treating. My dr says that medicine would not be good for me since it slows down my respiratory system. Was hoping cpap machine would help me. but I'm feeling even more dizzy.

I didn't like the nasal mask cause i get stuffy nose alot and i'm a mouth breather. I'm always yawning and feel the urge to yawn. Titration study had me on a nasal pillow mouth mask which breathed good. But the problem was I developed sores under my nostrils after only a couple days. So i'm using a simplus full face mask. the mask does feel very hot all the time from my breath, even with humidifier off, but I've gotten use to it. Could that be a problem? Does my body just have to get use to treatment? maybe I'm not sleeping as much as I think?

I did feel a suffocating feeling at first my pressure was set from 4-20, so I raised my starting pressure to 8 which helped a little bit. I've tried adjusting the mask not sure what else there is to do. I want to make sure I'm not killing myself with the machine.

I appreciate any suggestions.

Rich.

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nicholasjh1
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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by nicholasjh1 » Thu Mar 08, 2018 10:51 am

That's a lot of info...

I'm just going to cut to the chase...
1. get it out of your head that it's just about the sleep... It's also about the lack of oxygen and brain damage
2. sounds like nasal did work for you but you got pressure sores (you say it didn't in one place due to stuffiness, but it apparently did work at the sleep test)... this is a common problem to get pressure sores. There a few solutions. Lighten the tightness and try to get all 3? (depends on model) straps for the nasal cushion. use https://www.target.com/p/super-moleskin ... A-50227867 and cut out a pad to stick onto the nasal cushion... or possibly these (I haven't tried these yet but they look promising) https://www.target.com/p/corn-cushions- ... lsrc=aw.ds

3. you may need to adjust pressure... but we can't really help with that without some numbers.

I've been stuffy for the last 2 weeks (horrible cold) and not had a problem with the nasal cushions... I just upped the pressure a bit (from 9.4 to 10.6). Probably anything 7 or below could be difficult with a stuffy nose.

as far as condensation with your mouth mask... not sure what to tell you there... sounds like it's humid there... either lower the humidity or put it on auto. Possibly raise heat on the heated hose. But personally to me it sounds like nasal would be better for you if the main issue was pressure sores.
Instead of Sleep apnea it should be called "Sleep deprivation, starving of oxygen, being poisoned by high CO2 levels, damaging the body and brain while it's supposed to be healing so that you constantly get worse and can never get healthy Apnea"

richac
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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by richac » Thu Mar 08, 2018 11:50 am

nicholasjh1 wrote:
Thu Mar 08, 2018 10:51 am
That's a lot of info...

I'm just going to cut to the chase...
1. get it out of your head that it's just about the sleep... It's also about the lack of oxygen and brain damage
2. sounds like nasal did work for you but you got pressure sores (you say it didn't in one place due to stuffiness, but it apparently did work at the sleep test)... this is a common problem to get pressure sores. There a few solutions. Lighten the tightness and try to get all 3? (depends on model) straps for the nasal cushion. use https://www.target.com/p/super-moleskin ... A-50227867 and cut out a pad to stick onto the nasal cushion... or possibly these (I haven't tried these yet but they look promising) https://www.target.com/p/corn-cushions- ... lsrc=aw.ds

3. you may need to adjust pressure... but we can't really help with that without some numbers.

I've been stuffy for the last 2 weeks (horrible cold) and not had a problem with the nasal cushions... I just upped the pressure a bit (from 9.4 to 10.6). Probably anything 7 or below could be difficult with a stuffy nose.

as far as condensation with your mouth mask... not sure what to tell you there... sounds like it's humid there... either lower the humidity or put it on auto. Possibly raise heat on the heated hose. But personally to me it sounds like nasal would be better for you if the main issue was pressure sores.
I meant it was one of those masks with the little plateau under the nose and the part over the mouth.

I'm dealing with the same shady dme. I'm not sure this thing even records proper ahi data. Just tested it for 10 mins constantly holding my breath and the ahi data didn't change. said like .2 hours and the same 4-5 ahi its been saying past 3 days lol and 0% periodic breathing... I don't think these numbers will ever change. Can't believe this I really wish I never got stuck with this company.

First machine they gave me was a dreamstation that recorded no data even though they were billing my insurance for a much nicer resmed machine. So i demanded that one. they sent me a resmed machine that wasn't auto but recorded ahi data. Only recorded the data for a few days, then I had to keep replugging and plugging it in to get it working when it would stop. then it eventually just stopped working after a couple weeks. Then i got an auto resmed machine that kept shaking the mask all over my face, it was unbearable.

now i got this dreamstation auto machine, probably just as worn out as the others they sent me. Literally the buttons on the top feel like they gonna come off I don't remember the first deamstation I got being like that. I'm sure these companies take the dam things apart and flash the chips so they don't have a runtimes and claim they are new.

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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by Pugsy » Thu Mar 08, 2018 11:56 am

What is the model number of this new machine?
If it is indeed the DreamStation Auto CPAP model DSX500xxx then it is a full data machine and you can use SleepyHead software to see the data.
https://sleep.tnet.com/equipment
The fact that you tried for 10 minutes to fool the machine by holding your breath and it didn't show up in the data available on the LCD screen means nothing because the LCD data doesn't get updated immediately after you turn the machine off....if it even flagged the false events in the first place. You may not have even fooled it.
Use the available software if that's the machine you have.

If you chose the wrong machine in your equipment profile then you need to correct the choice.

See your doctor for the dizziness.

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richac
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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by richac » Thu Mar 08, 2018 12:35 pm

The model is dsx500t11w. I see the date now is 9/27/2017. So I guess its not that old.

I just tried to create an account on dreamapper.com, and it just gives me error message

" Something Went Wrong
Sorry, an error occurred while processing your request and the page you are looking for is temporarily unavailable.
Please refresh your browser to try again or return to the DreamMapper homepage.."


Then I tried to call the contact support number and its for something called frontier communications? what? lol

Thanks for the help.

EDIT: found another number to call. Also downloaded sleepyhead software. Just got to get an adapter to use the mem card on my pc. I have one laying around here somewhere.

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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by richac » Thu Mar 08, 2018 3:41 pm

Dreammapper support doesn't know whats wrong they will call me when they figure it out.

Just remembered the mask I used at my titration was the amara view full mask. Problem was after a week it was rubbing the bottom of my nose sore.

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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by richac » Mon Mar 12, 2018 4:11 pm

so dreammapper finally got me sorted but its only showing the info from the past couple days when I downloaded to my tablet through bluetooth. Even with sd card it apparently only lets you see data from day of registration.

I downloaded sleepyheaded and imported data from my sd card. Lots of info here not sure what I'm looking at.

I can tell out of the week that my best day was on friday, when I slept a whole 4h 53 mins. All the other days I'm waking up every 2 hours or so. That friday was also my lowest AHI 2.44. All the other days of the week i'm around 5.

So I can see what the pressure was set for on that friday. a min of 5 max 20. But what I can't figure out is what flex setting I was using that day> I've been messing around with the flex settings and minimum pressure. Is there any way to find out what flex settings I was using that friday? Any pointers on what I should be looking for or how to fine tune my settings?

Thanks for the help.

Rich.

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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by Pugsy » Mon Mar 12, 2018 4:43 pm

Go to SleepyHead's summary statistics page and scroll almost all the way down to the bottom and you will see the settings that were in place and changed.

It's under the "changes in prescription" section towards the bottom.
It should tell you whatever Flex you were using on that night in question under pressure relief.

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richac
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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by richac » Mon Mar 12, 2018 7:43 pm

Thank you for the reply.

I looked at the statitistics page. but for pressure relief it is saying NONE, and Mode says APAP (Variable). but I know i've been either using aflex or cflex, so not sure why its saying none.

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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by Pugsy » Mon Mar 12, 2018 7:47 pm

There's a little bug in the settings reporting and SH doesn't always get it right. Of course it would show up now when you really wanted to know.

Can you post a detailed graph of the night in question? I might be able to get a close estimate on the Flex setting by eyeballing the statistics and the graphs?
viewtopic/t158560/How-to-post-images-for-review.html
https://sleep.tnet.com/resources/sleepyhead/shorganize

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richac
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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by richac » Mon Mar 12, 2018 8:12 pm

Ty pugsy. Here is the the long session in question I had on march 9th.
screenshot-20180312-221047.png
screenshot-20180312-221047.png (145.45 KiB) Viewed 729 times

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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by richac » Mon Mar 12, 2018 8:17 pm

Here is the terrible sleep i had last night. Which i'm pretty sure I was using cflex, which I thought felt less suffocating for me, but maybe aflex would be better I'm not sure.
screenshot-20180312-221542.png
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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by Pugsy » Mon Mar 12, 2018 8:52 pm

Look at the pressure graphs...see the one with a bigger space between the top line and bottom line...that's the one with the highest Flex setting. Now I don't know if C Flex or AFlex but probably was set at 2 or 3.

The one with the bad night...see the 2 pressure lines are really close together...that one is probably a setting of 1.

Since SleepyHead won't keep a record for you....if you can remember...make a log or add it to the notes section in SH.
Did you see the notes area?

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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by Jas_williams » Tue Mar 13, 2018 3:54 am

I would also raise the minimum pressure of your machine from 5.5 up to 8 it is likely to feel better and help your numbers.

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richac
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Re: New cpap user still feeling dizzy.

Post by richac » Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:57 am

Thanks for the replies. Am I supposed to be snoring that much on cpap? I thought cpap was supposed to stop snoring. Actually I snore when breathing out, that is probably the reason why.

I did raise starting pressure to 6.5, but maybe I should indeed go higher so I'll try 8. usually 8.5 feels the least suffocating, but I tend to start thinking about my breathing which is why I didn't want to go that high. But I'll see what happens. I went back to aflex of 2 last night I will document in the notes section. had 2.88 apneas. Still feel like I haven't slept.

Still waking up at the same times. 12:30, 2:30 and then usually 7:30 am. people in my house also get up at those times. and I don't know how to stop it. I use ear plugs, blow fan noise to drown out any noise. I think my brain has been programmed to wake up always at those times. I even popped some xanax last night a friend gave me and I still couldn't stay asleep.

I wake up with my heart racing all the time even before cpap.

I'm beginning to think the only solution to my problems would be to move out of the house. Anyone can recommend any type of good ear plugs to use when sleeping?

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