Sierra

I don't have a hypo filter and don't really know what one looks like. Your plan sounds good if the filter can take getting wet. Another thought would be to cover it in activated carbon powder and let it sit for several hours.

I tend to open my mouth too, and tried a couple of different full face masks, but could not get used to them. Couldn't stop them from leaking and waking me up. I solved my problem with mouth taping. See this video by a dentist on mouth taping.

I have not tried that specific mask so can only give you general advice. I use a ResMed AirFit P10 Nasal Pillow mask. It is a bit more compact than a full face and does not get in the way as much. However, I use a down alternative pillow which conforms to my face and mask without pushing back as much. I also try to sleep with only my face on the pillow with the mask sticking out. That means I have to switch ends of the pillow when I roll over and essentially only use the left and right edges of the pillow. A smaller pillow works better than a huge king size pillow.

I have never heard of the company but looking at their website, they seem to be a credible company located in France. They also say their machines are manufactured in France. For this reason they may be an alternative to the popular North American machines; ResMed and Phillips (DreamStation). Both of these seem to be in very short supply these days potentially due to supply chain and chip shortages. I have never seen this brand available for sale at on line stores in Canada or the US. But, it must be available in France or the EU.

The Ecostar model seems to be more of a compact portable machine and does not appear to have a humidifier. The machine that would be more equivalent to the ResMed AirSense Auto, and the DreamStation Auto would be the DreamStar Auto. It is hard to say how well these machines work in auto. I did not see much detail on how they determine whether an apnea event was central or obstructive, and how the machine responds to each.

You may want to check on the possible side effects of any medications you are taking. I started Lyrica a couple of weeks ago and it is certainly giving me some dizziness symptoms at times.

My weakness is not chocolate. It is black licorice either from Australia or Finland. Both good!

BUG, I am curious if you have tried pregabalin (Lyrica) for your RBD? I have been having some lower back and foot pain issues and my doctor has given me some samples of Lyrica to try. I am not sure yet if it is really helping all that much. I am at 75 mg which is a very low dose. But, because of the way it is supposed to work it started me wondering if it could help with RBD. On some quick research it sounds like it, along with a couple of others have been suggested based on limited data, but no extensive studies have been done.

Alternatives to Clonazepam in REM Behavior Disorder Treatment

From what I can see from studies done it is not conclusive that it works on lower back pain, but my doctor thought it was worth trying.

Irbesartan is an ARB class blood pressure drug. My understanding is that it is a second choice drug used if an ACE inhibitor type like ramipril or perindopril cause side effects like a dry cough. The ACE inhibitor is preferred but sometimes not tolerated.

As I mentioned before I would ask the doctor about adding a diuretic (water pill) like indapamide as a replacement for the furosemide that you have discontinued. It should help with blood pressure as well as reduce fluid retention. At least in Canada it is a very low cost generic drug.

And for sure ask the doctor about taking the potassium. These diuretic pills can upset the electrolyte balance and too much or too little of sodium or potassium can be a significant problem. I would ask for a test to see where you stand for electrolyte balance.

That start pressure would likely feel very suffocating. The next thing you need to know is the minimum pressure. The ramp takes the pressure up to the minimum pressure over the ramp time that is set. If you press the round button when it is running and ramping up it may display that. The other way is to go into the Clinical Menu and check what the settings are. If you do that, you have to be careful not to change anything that you don't want to change. You do that by holding the Home key and Round button down at the same time for 5 seconds.

However, the best thing you could do if you want to get into the details of how the machine is set up is to download a freeware program called OSCAR. That lets you look at the detailed data captured on the SD card every time you run the machine. It can be displayed so you know exactly what is going one each night. It also displays current settings. It requires a PC or Mac and a SD card reader. The SD card is located on the left side of the machine behind a small door.

Another option is to go through the Clinical Manual for the machine. It tells you what all the options are. There are kind of two ways to go with this. You can use OSCAR to figure out what is going on, and then change the settings yourself. Or, you can use that knowledge to ask the sleep clinic tech to change them. If your clinic is cooperative then that is the best way to go. For something simple like changing the ramp start pressure I could tell you how to do that. That would be the first thing I would try to make it more comfortable.

The best starting point would be to look at the data with OSCAR and determine what is going on when your wife feels like she is not getting enough air, and what is going on when other issues occur during the night. OSCAR will also give you some idea whether or not the pressures are set too low or too high. You can post a daily report screen here to get comments.

An AirCurve 10 is a BiLevel machine that is more complex and capable of higher pressures. Higher pressures and a full face mask tend to be more uncomfortable, and a full face mask also tends to leak at higher pressures which can be very annoying.

One common issue with feeling like you can't get enough air to breathe is that the initial pressure is too low. If she is using a ramp up in pressure you can adjust the ramp start pressure. By default the pressure can be as low as 4 cm and that makes me feel like I am suffocating. I think it should be at least 7 cm. I have my machine set at 9 cm for the ramp start.

Can you figure out if a ramp is being used and what pressure it is starting at? The machine should display this pressure when it first starts.