Introducing Me!

Greetings everyone,

I've just been diagnosed with apnea and give a machine; I already had a pretty good idea due to the wife's gentle prods every night! I'm based out of Richmond, VA after spending my first 40 years in the UK.

With that said I've had bad apnea for 20+ years, but only just got treated because I left the UK, where the healthcare is sketchy at best.

Looks like there's a huge amount of useful information in here, I ended up here because I was searching for a reason why I felt even worse than before after a few days of using the CPAP machine, your forums answered that Q and many more.

If anyone is interested, the results from my sleep study were:

41 events per hour. Of which OA = 12, HYP = 29 - AHI 40

REM sleep was never achieved.

They put me on L7 on the machine, and I've got the humidity cranked up to 5/5 because otherwise I dry out completely, it still doesn't prevent dry mouth, but it helps. My OA's have improved a lot, but sadly been replaced with a lot of CA's, but the doc said, since I've had such bad apnea for so long, my brain will have to relearn how to do the right thing, but if my CA's don't drop within about 6 weeks (when I take the memory card to them to read), I might need an ASV??

When they hooked me up to the machine in my study the results after were (hourly average) CA 13.7, OA 2.3, HYP 9.6 = AHI 25.5

I have the clinicians manual, the tech that set the machine up left it with me; I'm an IT consultant by trade and am pretty safe with technology.

The Machine is a REMstar Pro C-Flex+ w/Humid 60 series (460??) with some wireless modem on the back and an SD card.

Cheers

Tony

Did you mention what kind of mask you are using? Did I miss it?

A dry mouth with a nasal mask can mean that you are opening your mouth and losing therapy out of your mouth.

Welcome, Tony! Looks like you've done your homework on OSA already. And you seen to have the proper attitude for success.

Glad to have you here.

jnk wrote:Did you mention what kind of mask you are using? Did I miss it?

A dry mouth with a nasal mask can mean that you are opening your mouth and losing therapy out of your mouth.

It's a full face Quattro FX if that helps?

Welcome to Hosehead Land, Tony!

UKTony wrote:

jnk wrote:Did you mention what kind of mask you are using? Did I miss it?

A dry mouth with a nasal mask can mean that you are opening your mouth and losing therapy out of your mouth.

It's a full face Quattro FX if that helps?

Thanks.

Then it is OK to breathe through the mouth, since it is a full-face mask. Although, the more you can breathe through the nose, the less chance of dry mouth from CPAP, of course.

Sometimes regular CPAP treats centrals just fine. Other times, ASV is needed.

I hope all the helpful people here can be helpful to you in making your therapy a success.

Welcome.

LinkC wrote:Welcome, Tony! Looks like you've done your homework on OSA already. And you seen to have the proper attitude for success.

Glad to have you here.

Thanks, I just wish that the doc had warned me that I'd feel a lot worse before I felt better, I could've warned the family in advance!

UKTony wrote:

LinkC wrote:Welcome, Tony! Looks like you've done your homework on OSA already. And you seen to have the proper attitude for success.

Glad to have you here.

Thanks, I just wish that the doc had warned me that I'd feel a lot worse before I felt better, I could've warned the family in advance!

It will get better. Me, I started off feeling great after the first treatment, others have taken more time. Don't give up! I've been on it a week, and my life has changed. I waited 15 years to finally do the sleep study. Keep up the good work!

Do you have the software so you can see for yourself what is going on each night?
SleepyHead will work with your machine but you need the Patch file.
I have links for the basic SleepyHead in my signature line but you also need the Patch file to get the last update that makes SH work with the 60 series machine.
Windows OS Patch is found in first post in this thread and if you don't know what it means to replace the application exe file with another file that is explained on pages 3 and 4 but being in IT you probably know how.
Mac Patch file later in the thread..don't remember where.

Here's the patch file thread
viewtopic/t83551/SleepyHead-Series-60-Patch-Avail.html

Do you have the heated hose or regular hose? If you don't have any other choice for humidifier than 5 that sounds like no heated hose. The default humidification system for the PR S1 non heated hose doesn't use as much water as another option that is available with the non heated hose. Do you use much water from the tank during the night right now?

First of all we need to check for leaks with your mask....leaks will make the machine use up water faster and it not be nearly as effective as it could be.
You may be mouth breathing and even if leaks aren't a problem...mouth breathing will dry the mouth out and maybe we could try the other mode that uses more water.
Ideally...the heated hose and its capabilities is the best thing to try to start with.. you can get more moisture with it.
Finally...remember that the humidifier sometimes can't put out enough moisture to well hydrated the oral cavity that is maybe on the dry side anyway...the oral cavity is a lot larger than the nasal cavity.

The other humidification mode is in the clinical setup menu. Default mode is the new Humidification system..turn it off and the machine reverts back to Classic Mode which uses more heat and more water so it will add more moisture...down side is more chance of rain out or condensation in the hose or mask but that also depends on room temp and my thoughts are cross that bridge if you come to it. It may not be an issue and if it is there are things we can do to fix that too.

So first thing...get the software and let's see what is going on besides AHI.
Here's a thread where we talk about how to post images of our reports for member input.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=81072&p=737779#p737779

Welcome to the forum. Sorry you are feeling worse but you aren't alone nor the first to have that happen.
Now let's get down to work and figure out if there's some stuff that needs fixing to maybe help you feel better.
Oh...BTW...As long as your AHI is in double digits on the reports...you aren't going to feel better. Sorry but that's the way it goes...you are still having too many events which is going to still mess with your quality of sleep and add in sleeping with with the alien mask stuck on your face...well...it's difficult.

If you have trouble with SH...I have another software that you can use but SleepyHead shows more and is more fun.
Let me know if you have problems.
SH has a Mac version...Encore is strictly Windows unless you have a Mac with virtual Windows on it.

Welcome, Tony!

Thanks for the pointers for the Sleepyhead software.....

I have it installed, have downloaded the Series 60 patch which also seems to be running, have popped the SD out of the CPAP, but I don't seem to be able to get it to import any data... all help gratefully received.

Tony.

Forget that, I now have the imported data (I was trying to be too clever)

Now all I need is someone to read the data for me, or teach me how to??

Regards

Tony

lower left hand side of any post from Pugsy. or put your data here. Upload image to something like photobucket and use that to get it posted here. (OK I have never posted my data, so I am sketchy on how to do it.)

OK, I can post them in here I guess??

Is there some fancy way of getting the graphs an/or information out of the software, or will I need to use some kind of magical screen grabbery?

UKT: You'll have a few problems with the wonderful FX riding up toward your eyes or sinking down below your mouth. Here is the thread on here in which a woman ("simply me") fabricated a little strap to connect the two lower straps that go below your ears. The strap will go under your chin. My wife made a strap for me and it has all but stopped the little "Whoosh" leaks. God bless!

viewtopic/t88030/Solution-to-Qauttro-FX ... k-NEW.html