Sierra

Those results are a little puzzling. There is some important information missing that is needed to make some sense of it though. Some questions:

1. Does your sleep study report give you an incidence of central apnea results that makes up the total for the night of 6.7 AHI?

2. What was the brand and model of the test machine, and what was the set pressure if it was a CPAP, or minimum and maximum if it was an APAP (Auto machine)?

3. Is your ResMed AirSense 10 an AutoSet or APAP machine? What are the set pressures on it? When you first turn it on, the display will light up and the number in the middle of the circle is the current pressure which may be your start pressure. In the top right of the display will be the minimum and maximum pressures if it is in APAP mode.

Spike, it depends on the mask you are using. If you have a nasal pillow or nasal mask then you have to breathe through your nose. With that type of mask it is really hard to breathe through your mouth because air pressure will cause air to only come out. With a full face mask that covers your nose and mouth, it doesn't really matter. A full face mask is suited to those who can't keep their mouth closed during sleep.

It will take some time to get used to the mask and the machine. My first night using a CPAP was awful. With respect to the dry mouth are you using a DreamWear nasal or nasal pillow mask, or the full face? If using the nasal type, and you open your mouth in the night, air can leak out, and give you a dry mouth. If using the full face that should not happen.

Do you have a heated hose, and have you put the humidity control in auto? A heated hose, humidity control in auto, and a temperature of 27 deg is usually very comfortable. I have not been able to tolerate a full face mask, but for the limited time I used it, I must mouth breathe and I do seem to get a bit of a dry mouth compared to the nasal pillow mask I normally use (ResMed P10).

I have read some reviews on the DreamWear mask where the air flow goes through the tubes up around your face to a tee connection on top of your head. Some complain that the mask is noisy. That said, I have a friend that uses the DreamWear Nasal Pillow mask and likes it. Give it some time before you make a change.

When you get SleepyHead working, let us know what pressures you are getting, or better still post a Daily screenshot. Depending on your pressures and whether or not you are opening your mouth, there may be better masks to try...

There are a couple of other options. Your data is as portable as your SD card. If you can convince someone with a computer to install SleepyHead you could take your data to the computer. On the ResMed AirSense 10 AutoSet, the data is available wirelessly to your machine provider. They should have software similar to SleepyHead to look at your results.

I tried to use SleepyHead with a brand new F&P SleepStyle machine. It would not work. I believe SleepyHead supports the Icon model though.

In that discussion forum I found this comment:

"After installing SleepyHead , you will find in C:\Program Files (x86) \sleepyhead two executables. One of them is SleepyHead-BrokenGL.exe That is the one you need, please make a shortcut to it..."

I checked and sure enough I have a BrokenGL version of the executable in the Program Files (x86) directory. It must create the two files when your download and run the single executable file. Sounds like you have to manually link a startup shortcut to that BrokenGL version of the file.

Yes, you can get a much more detailed report out of SleepyHead. You need a PC or Mac, and a SD card reader. After you install the software you can take the SD card out of the ResMed and transfer the data to SleepyHead. It should help you identify opportunities to see if the pressure can be adjusted. I will post a screen shot below as an example of what you will see. You can download SleepyHead at this link. It is freeware. And here is a link to a basic manual. Depending on your model of SPO2 monitor you may be able to display that data too. Click on the Oximeter link on the main SleepyHead page for more info.

Are you using the EPR feature? If so you may be able to gain a maximum mask pressure reduction by simply turning it off. Both myself and my wife use EPR at 3 but only during the ramp period.

Here is a screen shot from my wife's ResMed S9. She runs a pressure a little higher than mine, and close to what you have. She objects to the higher pressure so it is limited by the maximum pressure setting. Her values are min 12.8 and max of 14.4. This is not quite enough to totally control the flow limitations, but she dislikes having it higher, and over the longer term averages an AHI of about 1. She is currently using a F&P Brevida nasal pillow mask. It generally works well, but she does get some significant leaks during the night for short periods of time. I suspect from what I can hear that she dislodges it out of place to cause the leak.

I have downloaded the Windows 10 version from the link below, and it works fine for me on a couple of machines running Windows 10.

SleepyHead Download

Here are some basic instructions which may have some help.

SleepyHead Basic Instructions

This is a discussion forum for the software, but it is not very active.

SleepyHead Discussion Forum

What machine do you have? The software supports most ResMed and Phillips models.

I read an article at CBC on line about a University professor in Nova Scotia that is also a pharmacist. He (or more likely his grad students) has developed a website to provide resources to address insomnia and getting a good night's sleep without or with minimal medication. His view is that too many sleep aid medications are used, and they in turn are causing falls in seniors which cost the healthcare system a lot of money. He promotes the use of CBTi, or cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia. It is a very good website, and I have gotten quite a bit out of it. There are a number of tools to evaluate your sleeping beliefs and habits. Check out the CBTi tab in particular. Here is the link:

Sleepwell

The author of SleepyHead is Mark Watkins. The link below is to a SleepyHead forum where he participates, but has not made a comment for 5 months or so. He indicates he is taking a break from development work. I see others have suggested an Android version. In any case you could make a suggestion there.

SleepyHead Discussion Group

Another user reported something similar a while back. Have a look at that thread.

What is your minimum pressure set at? It should display briefly on the machine when you turn it on each night. The minimum and maximum will be displayed in the top right. The current pressure which should initially be the ramp start pressure will show in the middle of the circle, if you are using the ramp. The reason I ask is that out of the box the machine will have a minimum of 4 cm. Some people, like me find that pressure too low and it feels kind of like suffocating. That said, you should feel that way each night on start up too, if the minimum pressure is too low. Something to discuss with your provider.

I use the same machine and also use some free software called SleepyHead. You can view your detailed machine data with this software including the actual pressure delivered during the night. It certainly would tell you what is going on with pressure. The detailed data of all your nights so far with the machine will be stored on the SD card, so it would be a matter of downloading and installing the software, then transferring the data from the SD card with a card reader to your computer. That would let you look back and see what happened to your pressure on the nights so far. Assuming it verifies what you are experiencing it would be good evidence to give your provider to get a new replacement machine.

SleepyHead Download

SleepyHead Basics

One simple thing to check too is your power cord connections. This summer I had bought my wife a new power supply for her CPAP. It worked OK for about 4 nights and then it started to shut off in the middle of the night, many times causing symptoms like you report. It turned out to be a faulty plug on the new power supply. It was a molded connection and the wire or solder joint inside the plug must have been bad. If you wiggled it a certain way you could make the machine stop and start. I gave my supplier a copy of the SleepyHead report showing what it was doing, and they immediately sent me a new one.

Hope that helps some,