Sonia
I still think it is worth a visit to teh blog to read the whole letter but here are the settings description copied from the blog. Is it possible if 10 does not feel strong enough for you that you may have an air leak in vest somewhere like my new one does? It still inflates just not as strong as my old one did. Or perhaps the vest is too big on you? The blog also said this regarding size.
First thing's 1st. Warwick had me bring my actual Vest (not the machine) to the visit. And what do you know - he said mine was the worst fitting jacket he had ever seen. Sweet. I wear an adult Small size jacket (not the Minnesota style...and I didn't even know there were different styles). Warwick said that the jacket didn't go up high enough (the middle part goes straight across the middle of my breasts) - it should be up to my collar bones. And the bottom is too low - shaking parts of me where I don't have lungs.
Oh yes and the straps were too lose. He says to messure the cicumference of your chest. Then at 10% to that. That should be the circumference of the Vest (how tight you should have it). Of course mine was wrong
He has measured, definitively, the optimal frequencies for maximum sputum production. 6, 8, 9, 18, 19, 20. Each to be done for 5 minutes each.
In terms of pressure, there's a sliding scale. To find the pressure that's best for you, you start at frequency 6. And pressure 3. Then you take a few breaths. If that's easy for you to breath, then you move to pressure 4. If you're cool with that, then pressure 5. At some point, you'll reach a point where it's uncomfortable to breath. When you reach that point, chose the pressure below that and stick with that.
For me, at frequency 6, pressure 8 was too hard to breath. So pressure 7 is optimal for me. For frequency 6.
So the sliding scale is as follows - when I move to frequencies 8 and 9, I must move 1 pressure point down to pressure 6. And when I move to frequencies 18, 19, 20, I move to pressure 5.
So if you were good at pressure 10 for frequency 6, you would move to pressure 9 at frequencies 8,9 and then pressure 7 for frequencies 18,19,20 (I don't know why it's not 8....but he purposely did it that way). Hopefully I can find a way to post this chart.