jpcmt

Yeah, I'm plenty acclimated to wearing it because yes, it's totally normal to be walking around with a face mask on with a elephant hose coming off my head! lol I think what I'm finding in my limited use is that the face mask is not good for me...it's way to laborsome to exhale even with the exhale assist feature on my machine in place. And it produces the CSA events the most. The nose pillow works better and I have far fewer CSA events. I'm going to experiment by not turning it on until its right about time to sleep (instead of having it on and running while I read, adjust, and take an hour or so to fall asleep) so the "events" it measures (OSAs) will be what matters so that I and the doc can see if it actually helps. I'm pretty sure the machine is measuring all the CSA events equal with OSA events and that is skewing the data. Once that's done, the doc can get a good sampling of data and be able to adjust the pressure and maybe, gremlin, I could use the face mask without the CSAs and so much labor exhaling. That'd be nice.

Thanks for your replies. And if any others have such problems - onset of central apneas - due to using a CPAP, I'd love to hear what you did to resolve. Thanks! And yes bonjour, downloading sleepyhead right now! Thanks for that. Just wish it worked on android platform too like the resmed app...which is kind of sparse on data, but nice still. jpcmt

EDIT ugh, just installed sleepyhead and realized it uses data from SD card and while my machine has a slot for SD card, it transmits realtime cellular data so it doesn't use SD. I"ll get my RT to remotely turn on recording data to SD since I don't think I can mess with the machine and go fishing for the feature on the device. Then I'll start getting the data. Excited to see if it reports more specific data than the "myAir" app gives (score, usage hours per day, mask seal, events p/h, mask on/off). Thinking of getting an oximeter too for a bigger picture.

Is there a popular, low profile oximiter you guys use at night that gives an alarm and possible records Sp02 over night with time stamps or something? Be cool if they have such a thing on the cheap.

So while I'm on day TWO of my CPAP therapy and I FULLY REALIZE that it will go away in time or require some kind of adjustment to me, machine, or mask, what I'm experiencing is as follows:

With my resmed airsense 10 autoset machine acquired less than 24 hours ago, and phillips respironics nose/mouth mask (and later the nose 'bubble'-type pillow thingy I took home from my sleep study), humidity on 6, hose temp on 82º, and flow on 11...i lay comfortably supine as I drift off and just as I enter "sleep" and exhale, I do not inhale. Within seconds, due to my internal lung alarm, I find myself needing to inhale aggressively because I feel close to passing out...and fighting the positive air pressure in, exhaling is labored so I take a good two big breaths before I'm normal again.

Then as I drift off again (never really making it to 'sleep'), this repeats. For a total of 4 hours and 22 minutes of mask time and recorded are what are meant to be OSA events of 10 per hour (which are really CSA events I assume), I continue with this struggle. A couple hours last night until I just removed the mask and went to sleep on my own (quite restfully, without interruption), and again after I woke at 7:00am for a couple hours with the nose pillow mask instead of the nose/mouth mask...same thing.

So yes, it's day ONE. My studying (substantial since I can't sleep) indicates that CSA is from heart failure, kidney failure, or a host of other illnesses that cause the signal from brain to lung muslces/diaphragm to not fire, which I don't have. Only a couple places like Mayo Clinic suggest the CPAP usage can cause it and that it may simply go away with more CPAP use - which I"m hoping is the case!

SO....what are your experiences with suffocating when trying to sleep with a CPAP? What did you do? How did it go away?

I do not get this when I sleep unaided by the CPAP.

jpcmt