what's a good ramp time?

I tried searching but couldn't find a thread about this, although I'm sure there must be one.

How long is a good time to input on your ramp setting? I finally upped my pressure from 7.0 to 7.5 last night, and while I was in there I noticed my ramp settings were at 55 minutes or something. I changed it to 30 minutes, but I'm thinking even that is too long. If I get up once or twice during the night as usual, that's a lot of time where I'm not at full pressure. Does anyone have ramp on 15 minutes? How does it work for you?

After one night using ramp 3 years ago, I turned ramp to 0 min and haven't budged. Even when I switched machines I put ramp at 0 min on the new one.

Ramp is training wheels; it is best to not use ramp at all.

I think this is one of those individual things, like mask fit and pressure... I disagree that the ramp is training wheels -- at least not for everyone. My husband has been on CPAP for 5 years and just now got a machine with the ramp feature. It helps him by letting him fall asleep at a lower pressure because the higher one keeps him awake. He has his set for 30 minutes. On the other hand, I only use mine if I wake up in the middle of the night and the thing is blowing so hard I can't get back to sleep. I have mine set on 10 minutes.

YMMV, so you'll have to experiment to find what works best for you.

What's the starting pressure on the ramp? If it's 4 then yeah that's a looooooooong time on a non-therapeutic pressure. Most people say they feel like they're suffocating on that pressure. If you're starting out the ramp at say 6, then 15 minutes is probably enough. But there's not that much difference between 6 and 7, so you might just want to go without the ramp. Do you actually need the ramp? Many people find that they don't need it anymore, especially if they're on a lower pressure. I'm on 10.5 and don't really need it.

Set it for 5 minutes longer than however much time it takes for you to fall asleep.

The reason it is good to set the ramp for that amount of time is so your machine doesn't count the events against you that occur as you transition from awake-breathing to asleep-breathing.

I think maybe I learned that from Snoredog in a post a while back. Although, if it was him, I'm sure he used better terminology than I just used. At least, I'll blame him if it turns out what I just said is wrong.

jnk wrote:Set it for 5 minutes longer than however much time it takes for you to fall asleep.

The reason it is good to set the ramp for that amount of time is so your machine doesn't count the events against you that occur as you transition from awake-breathing to asleep-breathing.

I think maybe I learned that from Snoredog in a post a while back. Although, if it was him, I'm sure he used better terminology than I just used. At least, I'll blame him if it turns out what I just said is wrong.

I can confirm that.

After I set "Settling" (which is the same as Ramping) on my Auto for 15 minutes the recorded events went way down. During "Ramp" or "Settling" the machine does not record any events.

This time gives a person a chance to settle down... both in terms of breathing and to start getting more relaxed.

The difference with the Auto is that the "Settling" pressure is the minimum pressure for the range. For example my range is set for 8 - 10 so the "Settling" pressure is 8.

stacia123 wrote:I tried searching but couldn't find a thread about this, although I'm sure there must be one.

How long is a good time to input on your ramp setting? I finally upped my pressure from 7.0 to 7.5 last night, and while I was in there I noticed my ramp settings were at 55 minutes or something. I changed it to 30 minutes, but I'm thinking even that is too long. If I get up once or twice during the night as usual, that's a lot of time where I'm not at full pressure. Does anyone have ramp on 15 minutes? How does it work for you?

30 minutes is a good time, if you are still awake just hit it again or if you wake during the night hit the ramp it can help you fall back asleep faster.

Ignore the training wheels and it is best comments, those that say that don't have a clue, use the ramp if it helps you get to sleep and this is what using the machine is all about. I wouldn't use a Ramp starting pressure any lower than 6.5, get below 6.0 and the Cflex feature won't be of much good.

Use of Ramp can get you past any onset events if you have those. Use of the Settling feature on the Resmed Autoset does the same thing, keeps pressure at the Minimum on those and ignores any events seen during the Settling period.

Great feature, if it helps you get to sleep use it.

Mine is set at a pressure of 7 for 8 minutes because it almost never takes me any longer than that to fall asleep. At least I'm never even aware when it changes (pressure is 12), so I probably don't need it at all. I use ramp so when I'm doing my getting comfortable routine including coughing and throat clearing it's not counted in the data. I don't use it longer because if I'm asleep, I want to be fully protected. It really is personal preference.
Kathy

My sleep doc said she prefers 15 min or less for her patients. I use 15 but at the pressure of 10 rarely need to push it in the night when I wake and roll over. By the time I wake in the night IO'm used to the 10, for some reason it seems too strong at the beginning of the night.

Time to go mask up and go to sleep. Up way too late thanks to caffeine too late in the day.

Thanks for all the input! I do like ramp a lot and kind of need it to get to sleep. Maybe I won't need it later on, but right now I definitely need it. Even a pressure of 7 it's way too high for me initially, I really need the lower pressure when I first put on the mask.

Unfortunately it can take me just a few minutes to fall asleep or 2 hours, so it's not possible for me to determine ramp time based on getting-to-sleep time. And I had no idea that events during ramp time weren't counted. That worries me, because on nights where I got up 2-3 times and used ramp, that means there were hours where events didn't show up on the data. Ugh.

Right now I'm on a pressure of 7.5, c-flex of 1, and ramp at minimum of 5 for 30 minutes. Last night was my best AHI yet -- 1.3. I goofed by changing 2 things at once last night, though, so I don't know if my pressure change to 7.5 did the trick, or if it was changing ramp to 30 minutes.

stacia123 wrote:Right now I'm on a pressure of 7.5, c-flex of 1, and ramp at minimum of 5 for 30 minutes. Last night was my best AHI yet -- 1.3. I goofed by changing 2 things at once last night, though, so I don't know if my pressure change to 7.5 did the trick, or if it was changing ramp to 30 minutes.

That is what a lot of people find that use it, if it helps you fall asleep use it. Using 30 minutes; at 5 minutes you will be at 5.5, at 10 minutes 6.0, at 20 minutes at 7.0 and 25 minutes at your 7.5 pressure.

It's interesting how different machines seem to set the pressure on settling or ramping different. My sleep doc started me with at home titration and an APAP machine (S8II Auto) but after a couple weeks, decided that one pressure setting was good enough and switched me to a straight CPAP machine. I was on 4-20cm's which meant the settling started at 4cm. My new machine (Elite II) ramps at 4 cm as well.

However, I find that initially it's hard to exhale. The mask fills with air and even starts leaking on exhale. Once the pressure kicks up, there's not a problem. I am not quite sure I understand why. Any ideas???

The DME started the settling time at 45 minutes...I finally cut it to 15. I am considering trying no ramp tonight. I will report on what happens.

Jeff

My DME set my first machine with a ramp starting at 5 for 30 minutes, building to my therapeutic pressure of 12. And I used to hit that ramp button a *lot*.

My new machine is an auto set from 8-20. The ramp starts at 6 and is only set for 5 minutes. And most of the time I don't even bother using it. 8 is much nicer than 12.

I don't use the ramp at all. If you don't need it I think it's better to not even use it.