Sierra

As I think you have found in your research, sleep onset apnea is not all that uncommon. I only had to go back 11 days to find a night where I had a central apnea just after going to sleep. See the SleepyHead screenshot below. I went to bed at 1:09 AM (much later than my normal). At about 1:16 my ResMed machine decided I was asleep and started to ramp up the pressure to my normal fixed 11 cm. You can tell from the flow rate fluctuations that breathing was very regular indicating I was asleep. Then about 1:17 it appears my mask started to leak significantly. Perhaps I rolled over. The breathing indicates that I probably awoke or at least partially awoke. About 1:18 the pressure relief on exhale stopped as it should and I was then on the full fixed 11 cm, and looking like I was going back to sleep again. Except that at about 1:18:15 it looks like I stopped breathing. By 1:18:35 the machine declared this was a central apnea event that lasted 17 seconds. Regular breathing started again, and another mask leak change occurs which may mean a position change. This is followed by two more mini apnea events which did not last long enough to be counted. The pressure pulse would suggest they were central apnea. After that a regular sleep pattern followed with no events until about 2:10.

Long story, but the point you may want to consider is that the apnea event caused a minor disruption to my sleep, but it certainly did not keep me from going to sleep. My thoughts are that a critical question that you might want to ask your doctor is WHY would an apnea event prevent you from going to sleep? Apnea sufferers sleep through apnea events all the time, including ones just as they are going to sleep. So the unanswered question would be why it seems to disrupt your sleep so drastically that you can't go to sleep...

I can think of a couple of explanations. Are you using a nasal mask and is it possible you are opening your mouth during your sleep. The air rushing out your mouth can give you a dry mouth by morning.

The other possibility is that your humidifier is not working. What kind of machine do you have? Are you using a heated hose? How is the humidity control set up? When you remove the humidifier reservoir in the morning is it quite warm?

Your first check should be to verify he has a ResMed that stores detailed data on the SD card. If it stores detailed data and have a cooperative sleep specialist you should be able to take the card to be read using ResMed software called Rescan (or something like that). It does basically the same as SleepyHead or OSCAR. However, if you have OSCAR and have the data on a PC or MAC you can do a screen capture and post the data here for comments as well. Here is one of my SleepyHead Daily screen shots from back when I first started CPAP.

Some comments on this chart:

1. The leak rate was not great and near morning at 6:20 I had some quite large leaks. In general I like to keep the time over the leak redline at less than 1%. Large leaks that get grayed out can cause the machine to stop reacting to events and when the leak stops you can get a burst of events.

2. The red and green pressure lines are inhale and exhale respectively. What you look for is the events at the top and compare them to the pressure. If the pressure is maxed out and you are still getting obstructive events it can mean that the pressure is not being allowed to go high enough. The other thing to look for is where central events are occurring, if any. Too much pressure can cause central events, while not enough can cause obstructive events. So it can be a tradeoff setting. I now currently use a fixed pressure of 11 cm as I was getting too much pressure at times in Auto. You can see an example of that toward the end of the night where pressure was causing numerous centrals with pressure getting as high as 15 cm.

That is the very brief basics. Hope it helps some. Post a screen capture if you want comments. After you do the screen capture just left click on it and drag the file to an open post here that you are composing.

I was sleeping quite well before I was diagnosed with sleep apnea, so I can't say it has made a huge difference. I do sleep through the whole night without getting up much more often now.

Here is a link to a not for profit website that provides information to help people with sleep issues. The motivation of the project by a university professor was to help people find alternatives to sleeping pills. I have found many useful tips at the site.

Sleepwell It's no Dream

You may want to file a complaint with the transportation board. I have traveled quite recently in Canada with the lowest of the low service airlines (Swoop). They charged me $37 each way for a normal carry on bag that regular service airlines allow at no cost. But I knew it ahead of time, and no they did not charge me for the CPAP.

My wife still uses her S9 AutoSet and it works very well for her. If you use the S9 in Auto and SleepyHead to monitor the results you can check to see if the Elite is setup at the right pressure. About the only advantage I can think of for the AirSense 10 over the S9 is that the AirSense 10 has an Auto Ramp feature that I like.

If you are getting the pressure and the mask hose is not blocked or kinked you should be getting the required pressure. What is your minimum set at?

Some events can be caused by a less than restful sleep. However whether it is 40 or 25, both are still too high. Does you machine support SleepyHead? If so looking at the data with it, may be informative as to what the problem could be.

The AirSense 10 Elite costs about $50 more than the AirSense 10 CPAP. Can you offer to pay the $50 difference? They are both CPAP machines, and should be covered by your doctor's prescription for a CPAP.

I believe there is a commercial product that has the slit cut in it. Probably a lot more expensive than doing it yourself. I just fold over an edge of the tape to make it easy to remove. But I do find if I remove it in the night it does not stick well enough again without using new tape...