Either you go to the doctor and start nasal cortisone, allergy shots, or go hard-core and get surgery. Or become a true addict and learn how to use the spray right.jclarke131000 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 9:13 amIs there anything I can do to help with congestion besides using my usual nasal spray?
Speaking as a nasal spray user, xylometazoline is not as good as oxymetazoline in my experience. Unfortunately this generally means that you're in a part of the world where you can't get the good stuff (oxy). I use generic oxymetazoline HCL in the pump-mist... the squeeze bottle just doesn't get it up there. Pump-mist has that long skinny nozzle... stick it all the way up to the narrowing and pump hard while inhaling softly... the idea is to get the medicine in the sinus but not down the throat. Pick the worst nostril and dose it before bed... give it time to clear... then blow it out before retiring.
Lowering your min pressure did nothing as you can see from the graph... as soon as you went to sleep your pressure shot up to 10cm anyway and stayed there. Looks like you took off the mask for a minute and let the pressure motor back down around 06:30... or perhaps it fell off? When using Resmed EPR you're supposed to increase your base pressure the same as the EPR. You were at 10cm and moved to 7cm, then turned on EPR3? That's 6cm in the wrong direction IMO.
Obstructive problems irritate the airway... 'pissing it off' in my parlance. This is a vicious cycle that results in more obstruction, arousals etc. Not using the spray turned you into a snore-monster around 06:00... pushing the pressures high and causing you to do whatever happened at 06:30. If you start at higher pressures you get less irritation, less obstruction, less FL's, and less pressure changes... a smoother night.
I don't believe EPR helped you at all. I don't believe discontinuing the xylometazoline helped you at all. I don't believe lowering the min pressure helped you at all. See how jagged last nights' pressure graph is? That's the machine trying to take care of a problem that would have been stopped by higher initial pressures. You probably should be on 13cm to start with, no EPR. If you can tolerate 13cm with EPR3 that's a step in the right direction IMO. We can wean you off the spray later, let's get you treated first.
What do you think, Pugsy?