Ya done good, rese86. Thaaaat's the right picture!
What a beautiful low leak rate you're getting - lucky you!
rese86 wrote:I'm pretty pro active in my health especially since I'm relatively young and have so many issues (acid reflux, liver problems, migraines, etc). My neuro (he is a board certified sleep doctor, I just originally started seeing him because I was having severe headaches
Pugsy wrote:crappy feeling could be the events allowed at lower minimum pressure or simply the pressure variations or a combination of each. Also it could be other factors not related to cpap therapy..pain, meds, insomnia, bed comfort, meds, etc. If you are waking frequently for any reason that will surely mess with your sleep cycles and we need nice normal sleep cycles for the body to get the full benefit of the restorative powers of sleep.
rese86, what Pugsy mentioned could very well be at the bottom of your feeling bad. In other words, it could be "anything." My bet on what's causing a lot of your feeling awful during this two week trial with an autopap with the minimum set as low as it can go ( down at 4 cm ) is... that the minimum pressure is too low. It does look like a straight CPAP pressure of 9 or 10 will serve you better. That's not a criticism of your doctor doing this trial at 4 - 20, although I think one week like that would have been enough. At the end of one week (if I were him) I'd have wanted to look at a download of the
detailed data, and I'd have looked at each session's graphs like the last one you posted. From that, I'd probably have changed the range some by raising the minimum to 7 or 8 (leaving the max at 20, since you're not hitting anywhere near that anyway. ) In other words, I'd have wanted to see how it goes during the final week of the two week trial with the machine set at 7 (or 8 ) to 20.
As Pugsy said, there can be a multitude of reasons for continuing to feel bad -- reasons that have nothing to do with the effectiveness of "CPAP", which can be doing its part of the job great at keeping the airway open. Yet your sleep or general health could still be awful for reasons other than obstructive sleep apnea.
But I'm not a doctor, and it does sound like yours is really working well with you to try to help you. Just as Jan said, it sounds like he's a good one. That's smart of him to want to take a look (through this autotitration trial) what CPAP pressure will do a good job for you at home.
Janknitz wrote:sounds like you have a knowledgeable doctor working closely with you, so you may not want to change settings while he's collecting data during a home titration
This is a good idea:
cflame1 wrote:if you're concerned about pulse/ox... why not just get a rental on that as well... if it doesn't show anything that way you don't have the investment in something that doesn't impact you. If it does impact you then you can invest in one.
Get the doc to rx an overnight with one.
Many people have posted on the forum that most DMEs will do one overnight pulse ox recording for free if a doctor orders it. Since your O2 dropped so precipitously at your sleep study, that would be a good thing to look at, while using a CPAP at home, whether its done for a night during this trial, or for one night later when you're put on a single pressure again.
Good luck, and let us know what he says when you have your
after-the-auto-trial follow up appointment.
Very sorry about your cousin's death. That has to be adding to the stress in your life at this time.
My edit: Went back to put a space between the numeral " 8 " and the closed parenthesis mark. Because 8 followed immediately by ) turns into this: ... the "cool" emoticon smiley.
