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Clear Airway Apnea increases as OAA decreases

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Billapnea +0 points · over 5 years ago Original Poster

I'm all for experimenting with that, but, apparently, this is and unstable time of year for me. Although it has calmed down some. allergies have been just bad enough to clog a nostril here and there. Despite that, I have not gone over 5 AHI in twenty days now. The problem is, it's usually not for more than a couple of hours at a time because if I use Afrin (which I feel I must, at this point) to unclog the one nostril, it tends to make it hard to sleep because it dries me out so much, the irritation wakes me up. I'm hoping for a change in allergy season that will allow me to breath better. I am willing to go along with the fixed pressure, but until I can get some extended sleep sessions, I don't feel like experimenting will bring us much good data right now. I see where you said you'll be gone for two weeks and it's only been 9 days so far. I'll send you some data, hopefully before you come back. Had 9 and a half almost uninterrupted hours last night with a 2.77 AHI. When I wake up, it's always with a clogged or almost closed nostril. If that didn't happen, I think I would have AHI under one. I string 2 hours without so much as a Hypop every once in a while. I feel like anything that's not perfect is me and not this near perfect machine. A better way to bring more moisture from the humidifier when I really need it would be nice. That's a pipe dream, not a request. So the machine is perfect, it's the humidifier that isn't. LOL. Thanks very much for the heads up on your sabbatical from the apnea site. You deserve time away from we cry babies. Oh...speaking of crybabies, I feel so embarrassed I though that guy was ripping me off by selling me a used machine at a new price. You were exactly right about it being information I entered myself. Thank you, I'm glad you remembered that I had done that.

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Sierra +0 points · over 5 years ago Sleep Patron

Stick with it. I am just checking in with a tablet that is kind of limited. Have no access to Sleepyhead, which is a bit of a pain, but it at least keeps me from changing my settings. Have used a fixed CPAP pressure of 11 cm for 10 days or so, and it seems pretty good.

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Billapnea +0 points · over 5 years ago Original Poster

Good...Glad it's working for you

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Billapnea +0 points · over 5 years ago Original Poster

Please take your time responding to this. I'm struggling with feeling good, but still feel like it's progress. I determined that Afrin was undermining my sleep. It seemed to be a mixture of just waking me up because it sometimes has a stimulating effect and it wakes me up every couple of hours and it dries me out too much and being dry wakes me up. It's progress because it's mistakes and you learn. Just wish I learned a little faster. Not enough uninterrupted sleep to support enough data to experiment. plus, I'm usually not sleeping enough hours period, and when I do it's divided into afternoon nap and 3am to 9am naps. It's just not stable, plus it needs to be sleep for 9am to 5pm kind of job. The results from sleeping without Afrin are promising and It's lately occurred to me that I need to freshen up the water supply every time I wake up, if there's a possibility of me getting a bunch of hours sleep. I haven't paid enough attention to know hour many hours I have on a container full of water. My guess is 5-6. Wish I had a larger reservoir. Maybe there is a larger one that is compatible with that machine. Doubtful, but I'll check anyway. By the way, It's occurred to me that this paragraph is more about me needing to journal my thoughts out than a effort to derive further help from you. I will need that help eventually, hopefully soon, but it's more about me, kind of clearing my head. Despite the progress, it's still frustrating. Like the carrot is right there, but I can't seem to grab it. Oh...despite the lack of sleep, I have had 39 straight days of sub 5.0 AHI with only an occasions low clear airway apnea reading. The readings are almost always lower than four and there are quiet a few 2 AHI nights and four or five sub 1 AHI. I hear you saying, look for comfort. That's what I'm doing. I'm gonna get there.

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Sierra +0 points · over 5 years ago Sleep Patron

Bill, good to hear you are still working on the issues . Yes, I would try to make the treatment as comfortable as possible so you can get more uninterrupted sleep. I use a generic Otrivin nasal spray (Walmart), which I believe is similar to Afrin. However, I try to minimize the use as much as possible. If one uses it too often you can get a rebound effect which increases nasal congestion. I try not to use it day after day, but as occasionally as possible and only in one nostril at bedtime.

You may also want to consider a trial at a fixed pressure of about 10 cm based on the last readings you posted. If obstructive events are more frequent than clear airway, then you could bump that up to do a trial at 11 cm. If clear airway events are higher than obstructive, then you may want to bump it down 0.5 to 1.0 cm. For more comfort you may want to try using the ramp function with a start pressure of about 7 cm ramping up to your fixed pressure over 20-30 minutes. The idea with the ramp time is to try to guess when you are most likely to be asleep. Often getting to sleep can be the hardest part and a little less pressure over that going to sleep time can be helpful.

I think I have posted it before, but I have found some help with insomnia issues at the SleepWell website. In particular I found these sections helpful:

The hygiene of Sleep

CBTi

And if you want to go smart phone tech with it all, they have a link to a free Veterans Affairs app that apparently one can use to help with the use of the CBTi techniques. I have not used it though.

CBT-i Coach

Hope that helps some,

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