sleeptech

Hi DenMoo. What is it about CPAP that is bothering you? It's different for everyone.

Short answer, bottled water should be fine, especially for a relatively short period such as that. Worst it can do is slowly make your humidifier chamber dirty, but that normally take much more than 2 weeks.

I agree with Wiredgeorge. Have a look at the Amara View.

This is getting a bit confusing because the terminology is getting mixed up. You said that you are having 17 central apnoeas per night but that your total central apnoeas + hypopnoeas per night is < 10? How can the number of central apnoeas and hypopnoeas together be less than the number of central apnoeas alone?

17 central apnoeas per night is not a big deal. For 8 hours sleep that's about 2/hour. Some people naturally have central events at sleep onset or immediately after a disturbance (which won't respond to CPAP). I wouldn't get too worked up about it.

A hypopnoea is a partial decrease in air flow which is accompanied either by a decrease in your blood oxygen level, an arousal (change in your brain activity) or both. Again, if the overall number of events is not too high, then it is likely not a great concern. You sleep study should really have filled in some of the detail here.

All chinstraps should allow you to open you mouth if you try. That's not what they are trying to prevent. They are supposed to prevent you jaw from drooping open when the muscles relax. Think of it as supporting your lower jaw rather than keeping your mouth closed. So even though you may be able to open your mouth when you are awake, your chin strap may still be helping to support your jaw while asleep.

Are you sure that what you feel is your "uvula closing"? The obstruction in OSA happens slightly further back than that. The CPAP machine is simply supposed to create enough pressure in your upper airway to keep it open (just like blowing up a balloon). When some people fall asleep they have what we call in the industry "onset events". These are brief pauses in you breathing which are central in nature rather than obstructive, occur as you are falling asleep and disappear rapidly once you are properly asleep. These are usually no big deal. What sort of AHI does your machine say you have?

I agree - it's creepy. The manufacturers never asked anyone if they want all of their data consonantly transmitted back to the manufacturer forever. I can;t help but imagine it's a way for them to push more product on you. "Hi Mr Smith, this is ResMed. Your mask leak was a little high last night. It must be time to buy a new one". I think that the idea of constantly harvesting info from all of you consumers without their consent or knowledge is more than a little ethically shady.

If you had a sleep study to ascertain your pressure then it should be correct. However, some settings on your machine may have an effect here. What are your ramp settings like? Also, do you have an auto CPAP? If so, there will often be more air when you wake up because the machine has turned itself up to treat your OSA. Stopping it and starting it again is the right move in that case. Mask leak will also cause your machine to blow more - this is called leak compensation.

How many central apnoeas are you having?

CPAP and BiPAP, while related, work quite differently and are not freely interchangeable. If you do need BiPAP it really should involve another sleep study for it to be set properly.

Yes, as long as it looks like water and not like soup. It should be fine.

Hi Cdowis

If your doctor wants you to have another, monitored sleep study then you should probably do just that. It would seem to make sense in this case. CPAP Although reducing your AHI from 38 to 19 is halving it, 19 is still too high. Put simply, it means that you are still stopping breathing every 3 minutes. That's not cool. Now ordinary CPAP is not treating it and they need to know why. It could be that there is something else besides OSA which is creating a false high AHI reading - restless legs for example. The only was to determine this is with a formal sleep study.

When it comes to BiPAP, you cannot just buy one, turn it on and expect it to work. It is a far more complex piece of equipment and needs to be set specifically for every person. It is used for treating more complicated problems that OSA, such as central sleep apnoea, obesity hypoventilation syndrome, type 2 respiratory failure and so on. Where CPAP has just the 1 setting, which is pressure, BiPAP involves many parameters involving not just 2 different pressures but breath timings and other things. It can only be properly set for long term use in a sleep study.

It may be that you just have OSA and something is fooling the APAP, in which case you will need a study to reveal and determine appropriate treatment. It may be that you have central sleep apnoea instead or as well, in which case you will need a sleep study to treat it with BiPAP or ASV. Either way, I don't think you can get out of another study.

Oh, and your doctor cannot use data from a study of your normal sleep to determine the settings for your treatment. He can use it to make a diagnosis but that's all.