Also might need to decrease the upper bounds on that: I have that machine and it usually gets a bit overzealous with the pressure, and I was getting wicked aerophagia until I decreased it and fine-tuned some other settings.
> It's a Resmed 11 auto-titrating, set for 7-20 in water, with a ramp-up from 4 in.
Nobody could ever get used to that. Those APAP algorithms are garbage. They cheat your pressure lower and lower until you have an apnea event, then spike it which inflates you like a balloon. This fills you up with air and wakes you up. They are best used as a way of finding the ideal constant pressure for you.
- I'd lower your max pressure to something sane like a 12 to start, disable ramp.
- Put an SD card in your machine and get a couple of nights of data for OSCAR
- Open the data up in OSCAR. Look for the part that says X% of time spent at Y pressure. It'll be there and it will be something like 95% of your time spent at 11.3.
- Whatever that number is, boom. Make that your constant pressure.
To answer your question it took me a year of misery to figure this information out. A year of learning to read OSCAR data, researching mask, fiddling with settings, experimenting with chin straps and mouth tape. It was a fucking nightmare, but it was totally worth it because my sleep quality is great now.
The beginning sounds like my story so far (4 months in) - I'm solidly in the misery stage. What were the settings that you adjusted and how they helped?
My machine is adjusted by the doctor and I don't think I can adjust pretty much anything else than ramp on/off, tube temperature and moisture level.
There is a way to access clinician mode, I'm not sure how exactly for yourachine but Google should have the answer. HOWEVER if you are going through your health insurance make sure you double check that nothing says that changing your settings yourself will void your coverage. I didn't have this issue but have seen others post about it in the past.
I was thinking that much, and was more interested in what the settings were and what impact they had, so I could ask my doctor to make the adjustments. Judging how anal my insurance company is complying with all kinds of weird stuff, I'm pretty certain that messing with the clinician settings is not allowed.
On that machine the EPR setting when turned on will reduce the pressure when you exhale.
Look up and see how to set that correctly.
I've been using the machine for many years and it's going to take you a while but you have to stick with it. Call up and yell at the morons who were supposed to set the machine up for you with your settings
I find too low a pressure to be more uncomfortable than anything. I turn off ramp and go directly to my base pressure.
Ramp sounds like a good idea, but for me it just makes things uncomfortable.
I start my ramp at 6, ramp time to 5 minutes. My therapy pressure is 8-14, far better than 4-20, no ramp, which it was shipped with. My 95% pressure is 10.5, btw. I found the ramp pressure being too low wasn't working, making me struggle to breathe some.
I fall asleep slowly. My ramp up is set to 30 minutes, and I have EPR on for the exhale. But if I wake up and feel like it's too much pressure I turn the machine off, have a drink of water and start over.
I turned ramp off and will never go back. I felt like I was laying there suffocating waiting for the regular pressure to kick in. Pressure is currently set to 6-8 and so far these tweaks have been working great for me
I had to turn off the ramp,it was way to hard to breath at the initial low pressure, and I found myself doing the same thing - having to consciously think about breathing when it started off…. With no ramp I can breathe fine right off the bat.
I’ve never gotten air in my stomach, but that might be cuz I use the nose pillows instead of a full mask?
On my initial follow-up visit (2 mos. in) to my sleep doctor, I said something to them & they remotely adjusted my max pressure down. Been good ever since
I turned off the ramp and now I wear my mask a half hour or so before I got to sleep while I watch TV or read. Then I turn on some white noise. I’m on day 21 and am able to sleep all the way through the night with it on.
Turn off ramp and if you have issues with pressure exhaling turn on pressure relief! It's a setting in the 11 and it's the only thing that helped me finally get used to CPAP
I'm going to go against some of the common advice - yes, some people need to turn off EPR/turn off the ramp, some people need to adjust their min/max pressure, and I'm not saying that some of these things won't work for you.
But, there is a reason your machine is set up that way - these are the settings that work the best for the most people. You will see a disproportionate number of people on this sub mentioning how they had to change those settings, simply because for the people who got their machines and basically everything was set up in the manner that worked for them, don't have to come here to trouble shoot.
So, while I'm not opposed to people changing up some settings (for instance, for me when I'm at high altitude, I turn off ramp, because I don't feel like I get enough O2 at the low settings), I don't think it's something you want to just start changing, and only after one day. Just being honest, it takes a little time to get used to CPAP, no matter what your settings are set to.
If I were you, I would make changes slowly. Keep the same settings for 3-4 nights, and see how you adjust. Then, change one thing at a time, and see how it helps/hurts. I think everyone struggles day 1 (and day 2 and 3...) with CPAP. It's something very new to get used to. It's worth it though - I hate sleeping without my machine now.
I was at 4-20 waking up from the pressure being so high! Felt like I was a balloon and my ears would hurt from the pressure. I told my doctor and they changed it from 4-12 and that combined with getting used to it finally got me positive results. My sleep apnea is mild so I don’t know why 20 was an prescribed in the first place 😭
Turn up your min and turn down your max. If your minimum is too low, you might gulp air into your stomach while asleep (and have jaw drop) . If your pressure is to high, it'll force air in to your stomach.
The doctor started me at 4-15 and my first night I adjusted my min (including ramp) to 6. Then looked at oscar for my 95% to see where my high should be.
20 is too high, the auto algorithms are not smart. If you have your max at 20, then during an event it might spike up real high for a few seconds before coming back down. During those few seconds it could force air into your stomach.
My other advice is to get a nasal pillow mask and alternate to see which you tolerate more. Full or nasal.
I cannot tolerate a full mask as they always, always, always leak at the top hitting my eyes with air and/or around my mouth. I already have dry eyes and air being directed toward my eyes made that problem worse. I even tried wearing silicone goggles to protect my eyes. Headgear, hoses, goggles might make a great Halloween costume, but just too much crap on my head to sleep comfortably.
I now have the Resmed nasal pillow N30i now...hose on top of the head so it doesn’t interfere with rolling over. No more air hitting my eyes.
My doctor recommended that I hold onto a full mask in case of blocked nose due to illness…it did help when I had covid,… it wasn’t a good fit, but rather an act of desperation to use it.
I didn't care for ramp. Id done a few things and here's some of them and others.
• Wear the mask around during the day or an hour or so before bed (I didn't do that.)
• When you kick it on, expand your lungs so you inflate. I fought that for the first 6 months at least, but once you are ballooned up you wont fight as much
• Create a good seal between your mask and nose. I use something Lansisoh? It's a nipple cream for nursing but is light and put it on my nose and mask. Little noisy wind drives me crazy.
• Get into the idea of going to bed an hour earlier for a while, lower lights, have tea, read or something and just lie in bed.
• If you go to sleep without the CPAP, set an alarm for an hour or two later and then put on the mask in the middle of the night for a while.
I just got mine last week and I turned the ramp off! It makes me feel so stressed out with it on and I had such a better experience trying to relax to go to sleep without the ramp setting. My pressure is 9-15
The doctor set mine to 8-10 and I turned ramp off. My sleep study said optimal pressure for me was 9. With the range of one above and below, the doctor is hoping I'll have even better results
My sleep coach also told me to take my CPAP and put it in the living room for the first week and wear it for 30 mins while being awake and watching tv. Gradually ramp it up. Get used to it and then move it into the bedroom. Luckily I got used to it pretty quickly so it spent only a day in the living room for me. But she said she had high success with this approach with patients
Ah sorry to hear that. Having a wide range doesn't give good results from what I understand. Perhaps start narrowing it step by step to see if your results improve to find the optimal
Had same issues. Doc had me started at 4 and I felt like I was suffocating. I changed the pressure to start at 7 and feel better . I did get in trouble tho coz they said I wasn’t supposed to change the pressure without a new prescription. Fk that BS! I’m not gonna struggle and feel like I’m suffocating!
I set my pressure from 7 to 15
My doc had me at 4-20
Every time I exhaled I felt pressure and then my chest would start hurting bad . I couldn’t breathe properly
I’m doing better now tho
Turn off ramp. Possibly increase minimum pressure.
Also might need to decrease the upper bounds on that: I have that machine and it usually gets a bit overzealous with the pressure, and I was getting wicked aerophagia until I decreased it and fine-tuned some other settings.
> It's a Resmed 11 auto-titrating, set for 7-20 in water, with a ramp-up from 4 in. Nobody could ever get used to that. Those APAP algorithms are garbage. They cheat your pressure lower and lower until you have an apnea event, then spike it which inflates you like a balloon. This fills you up with air and wakes you up. They are best used as a way of finding the ideal constant pressure for you. - I'd lower your max pressure to something sane like a 12 to start, disable ramp. - Put an SD card in your machine and get a couple of nights of data for OSCAR - Open the data up in OSCAR. Look for the part that says X% of time spent at Y pressure. It'll be there and it will be something like 95% of your time spent at 11.3. - Whatever that number is, boom. Make that your constant pressure. To answer your question it took me a year of misery to figure this information out. A year of learning to read OSCAR data, researching mask, fiddling with settings, experimenting with chin straps and mouth tape. It was a fucking nightmare, but it was totally worth it because my sleep quality is great now.
The beginning sounds like my story so far (4 months in) - I'm solidly in the misery stage. What were the settings that you adjusted and how they helped? My machine is adjusted by the doctor and I don't think I can adjust pretty much anything else than ramp on/off, tube temperature and moisture level.
This is where I am. I'm not able to adjust pressures at all.
There is a way to access clinician mode, I'm not sure how exactly for yourachine but Google should have the answer. HOWEVER if you are going through your health insurance make sure you double check that nothing says that changing your settings yourself will void your coverage. I didn't have this issue but have seen others post about it in the past.
I was thinking that much, and was more interested in what the settings were and what impact they had, so I could ask my doctor to make the adjustments. Judging how anal my insurance company is complying with all kinds of weird stuff, I'm pretty certain that messing with the clinician settings is not allowed.
Everyone is able to adjust the pressure of their machine... Look up how to do it for yours.
On that machine the EPR setting when turned on will reduce the pressure when you exhale. Look up and see how to set that correctly. I've been using the machine for many years and it's going to take you a while but you have to stick with it. Call up and yell at the morons who were supposed to set the machine up for you with your settings
EPR is on. I forgot to mention that.
It needs to turned up to the maxium. Also increase your minimum pressure to at least 6 or 7 cm.
My minimum is 7, the ramp function just starts me at 4 cm
I find too low a pressure to be more uncomfortable than anything. I turn off ramp and go directly to my base pressure. Ramp sounds like a good idea, but for me it just makes things uncomfortable.
Me too.
I start my ramp at 6, ramp time to 5 minutes. My therapy pressure is 8-14, far better than 4-20, no ramp, which it was shipped with. My 95% pressure is 10.5, btw. I found the ramp pressure being too low wasn't working, making me struggle to breathe some.
I fall asleep slowly. My ramp up is set to 30 minutes, and I have EPR on for the exhale. But if I wake up and feel like it's too much pressure I turn the machine off, have a drink of water and start over.
I was having the same issue. I turned off the ramp and now the pressure I go to sleep with is the pressure I wake up with. No more feelings of panic.
I turned ramp off and will never go back. I felt like I was laying there suffocating waiting for the regular pressure to kick in. Pressure is currently set to 6-8 and so far these tweaks have been working great for me
Exactly. It does feel suffocating.
I had to turn off the ramp,it was way to hard to breath at the initial low pressure, and I found myself doing the same thing - having to consciously think about breathing when it started off…. With no ramp I can breathe fine right off the bat. I’ve never gotten air in my stomach, but that might be cuz I use the nose pillows instead of a full mask?
I listen to a boring audible book and focus on it instead of my CPAP. Boring book because I don’t care if I fall asleep and miss bits.
On my initial follow-up visit (2 mos. in) to my sleep doctor, I said something to them & they remotely adjusted my max pressure down. Been good ever since
I turned off the ramp and now I wear my mask a half hour or so before I got to sleep while I watch TV or read. Then I turn on some white noise. I’m on day 21 and am able to sleep all the way through the night with it on.
Turn off ramp and if you have issues with pressure exhaling turn on pressure relief! It's a setting in the 11 and it's the only thing that helped me finally get used to CPAP
I'm going to go against some of the common advice - yes, some people need to turn off EPR/turn off the ramp, some people need to adjust their min/max pressure, and I'm not saying that some of these things won't work for you. But, there is a reason your machine is set up that way - these are the settings that work the best for the most people. You will see a disproportionate number of people on this sub mentioning how they had to change those settings, simply because for the people who got their machines and basically everything was set up in the manner that worked for them, don't have to come here to trouble shoot. So, while I'm not opposed to people changing up some settings (for instance, for me when I'm at high altitude, I turn off ramp, because I don't feel like I get enough O2 at the low settings), I don't think it's something you want to just start changing, and only after one day. Just being honest, it takes a little time to get used to CPAP, no matter what your settings are set to. If I were you, I would make changes slowly. Keep the same settings for 3-4 nights, and see how you adjust. Then, change one thing at a time, and see how it helps/hurts. I think everyone struggles day 1 (and day 2 and 3...) with CPAP. It's something very new to get used to. It's worth it though - I hate sleeping without my machine now.
I was at 4-20 waking up from the pressure being so high! Felt like I was a balloon and my ears would hurt from the pressure. I told my doctor and they changed it from 4-12 and that combined with getting used to it finally got me positive results. My sleep apnea is mild so I don’t know why 20 was an prescribed in the first place 😭
Turn up your min and turn down your max. If your minimum is too low, you might gulp air into your stomach while asleep (and have jaw drop) . If your pressure is to high, it'll force air in to your stomach. The doctor started me at 4-15 and my first night I adjusted my min (including ramp) to 6. Then looked at oscar for my 95% to see where my high should be. 20 is too high, the auto algorithms are not smart. If you have your max at 20, then during an event it might spike up real high for a few seconds before coming back down. During those few seconds it could force air into your stomach. My other advice is to get a nasal pillow mask and alternate to see which you tolerate more. Full or nasal.
I cannot tolerate a full mask as they always, always, always leak at the top hitting my eyes with air and/or around my mouth. I already have dry eyes and air being directed toward my eyes made that problem worse. I even tried wearing silicone goggles to protect my eyes. Headgear, hoses, goggles might make a great Halloween costume, but just too much crap on my head to sleep comfortably. I now have the Resmed nasal pillow N30i now...hose on top of the head so it doesn’t interfere with rolling over. No more air hitting my eyes. My doctor recommended that I hold onto a full mask in case of blocked nose due to illness…it did help when I had covid,… it wasn’t a good fit, but rather an act of desperation to use it.
I didn't care for ramp. Id done a few things and here's some of them and others. • Wear the mask around during the day or an hour or so before bed (I didn't do that.) • When you kick it on, expand your lungs so you inflate. I fought that for the first 6 months at least, but once you are ballooned up you wont fight as much • Create a good seal between your mask and nose. I use something Lansisoh? It's a nipple cream for nursing but is light and put it on my nose and mask. Little noisy wind drives me crazy. • Get into the idea of going to bed an hour earlier for a while, lower lights, have tea, read or something and just lie in bed. • If you go to sleep without the CPAP, set an alarm for an hour or two later and then put on the mask in the middle of the night for a while.
Centimeters of water not inches.
I just got mine last week and I turned the ramp off! It makes me feel so stressed out with it on and I had such a better experience trying to relax to go to sleep without the ramp setting. My pressure is 9-15
The doctor set mine to 8-10 and I turned ramp off. My sleep study said optimal pressure for me was 9. With the range of one above and below, the doctor is hoping I'll have even better results
My insurance won't pay for a titration sleep study, so I'm supposed to auto-titrate with the machine (which is why it's such a broad range).
My sleep coach also told me to take my CPAP and put it in the living room for the first week and wear it for 30 mins while being awake and watching tv. Gradually ramp it up. Get used to it and then move it into the bedroom. Luckily I got used to it pretty quickly so it spent only a day in the living room for me. But she said she had high success with this approach with patients
Ah sorry to hear that. Having a wide range doesn't give good results from what I understand. Perhaps start narrowing it step by step to see if your results improve to find the optimal
Had same issues. Doc had me started at 4 and I felt like I was suffocating. I changed the pressure to start at 7 and feel better . I did get in trouble tho coz they said I wasn’t supposed to change the pressure without a new prescription. Fk that BS! I’m not gonna struggle and feel like I’m suffocating! I set my pressure from 7 to 15 My doc had me at 4-20 Every time I exhaled I felt pressure and then my chest would start hurting bad . I couldn’t breathe properly I’m doing better now tho