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Extreme fatigue but with decent numbers - what to do next?

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singingkeys +0 points · over 4 years ago Original Poster Sleep Commentator

Alright, so I had the P10 mask for a while and kept pulling it off after 1-3 hours. I was getting tangled in the hose, as well. I switched to the Dreamwear mask and love it. It stays on a lot better and I wear it for 6-8 hours. Air Sense 10 Autoset. I see decent numbers on a regular basis:

Starting pressure is 6.0. Minimum pressure is 6.4. Max pressure is set to 9 and always tops out just below at 8.9 virtually every night.

0.5 to 1 AHI on a consistent basis. 0.4AI and 0.3 central AI. On good nights, the central is flat 0. I for sure don't seem to have any central. Occasionally if I have a bad night, I'll open my mouth and cause an AHI up to 2 and sometimes increased centrals. Leak rate averages 14L/min. I'm told by some that this is somewhat high and that my goal should be as close to 0 as possible. I was under the impression for some reason that there would be "some" leak rate as part of the air venting from the mask constantly.

Dreamwear mask works great. Love the hose on top of my head so that I can sleep on my side sometimes with no issue. However, I wake up every morning feeling like utter squat, as if I slept poorly, have no energy, etc.

What do people do when this happens? I have had the in-lab study and home sleep study. In lab was 4.7AHI, 50 unclassified RERAs in 2.75 hours. Home sleep study showed 5.3AHI.

So I started monitoring myself. I have the home security camera system box in my room. I had a spare camera with night vision and trained it on my bed. I'm wearing my mask, I jolt awake and look around like something just scared me. It doesn't look like I do it a lot, though. It may just be when the machine ramps or something. It is usually on a night when I'm getting 6-8 hours with numbers that look good the next morning and I should have somewhat better energy.

So I guess the question is...why don't I feel better? Is it my leak rate?

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Sierra +0 points · over 4 years ago Sleep Patron

On ResMed machines the purge air flow is subtracted out of the total leak rate. When you set the mask type in your machine that tells the machine how much to subtract out. The reported leak rate in a ResMed is the actual unintended leak flow. 24 L/min is quite fine. If you right click on the leak rate vertical scale in SleepyHead you can check off the box that displays the leak red line. It is at 24 L/min. If you are under that red line for the 98% of the night that is pretty good. In other words 0-2% of the time over the leak red line.

I don't think leaks disturbs sleep unless the leaks are blowing in your eyes or on you arm or something. It takes some time to get used to sleeping with a CPAP, and I suspect you are still not used to it. Try to get 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I would not nap during the day or try to sleep more than 8 hours. When you go to sleep you want to stay asleep and get quality sleep. Avoiding naps can help with that.

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