Help interpreting first Sleepyhead reports

Hi

Software and data loaded

But for life of me I can't find the key! What does clear airway mean or the purple ad blue bars mean in the summary?

Cheers Karen

KSparkles wrote:Hi

Software and data loaded

But for life of me I can't find the key! What does clear airway mean or the purple ad blue bars mean in the summary?

Cheers Karen

clear airway == central apnea... not breathing, and not trying to breath.

there should be text in the bars?

Way to go Karen!

Here's one guide to understanding the SleepyHead report: http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread ... Discussion

This is an example of a SleepyHead screenshot with the graphs that we'd want to see -- you can drag and drop graphs to get them all in one screenshot and move the unnecessary graphs out of the way. The data on the left is important too (the calender is not necessary - to hide it, click the tiny little arrow right under the white box with the date in it).



You could also post a screenshot of your Statistics page like so, to allow us to look at the numbers you have for the last year:

Here are a few screen shots, what is clear is the number of apnea have increased over the course I have been feeling more ill, but the last two months there is a decent job. Having said all that they are still AHI < 1. I've confised myself with all the sleepyhead data and instructions, but I'm hoping you could help me out and have a look. Hopefully you can spot some useful thing.

I attach, the last year, last couple of months and an old and recent daily reports.

palerider wrote:

KSparkles wrote:Hi

Software and data loaded

But for life of me I can't find the key! What does clear airway mean or the purple ad blue bars mean in the summary?

Cheers Karen

clear airway == central apnea... not breathing, and not trying to breath.

there should be text in the bars?

Why doesn't it just say "central apnea"? Saying "clear airway" makes it sound like all is well.

Noctuary wrote: Why doesn't it just say "central apnea"? Saying "clear airway" makes it sound like all is well.

Each manufacturer calls it something different. Resmed uses "Central" and P-R uses "Clear" for the same type of an event. That's why most of the time it's listed as "CA".

The AHIs for last year look OK, they are all below 3.

KSparkles wrote:Here are a few screen shots,

please don't do the clip art thing, please paste full screen screenshots, because you're clipping off vital information.

KSparkles,

The first thing that pops out in the data you posted is the fact that there are a significant number of days with very low usage. (The red bars in the Usage summary graphs.) There are 7 days with usage < 4 hours in the last 15 days, including a stretch of 5 days from May 14 through May 18.

And then there relatively fewer days where the usage is over 6 hours than there are days where the usage is between 4 and 6 hours. So if you are like most people and need around 7.5 hours of sleep each night, then you're either not getting that much sleep on most nights or on many (most nights) you are sleeping for 1-3 hours without the CPAP on your nose.

And the Sessions Times data indicate that there are a lot of nights where you are turning the machine off and on during the night. Sometimes you have one or two big gaps between turning the machine off and back on. Sometimes you have a lot of multiple sessions with short gaps between them.

There is also a fair bit of variability in when you turn the machine on for the first time at the beginning of the night and when you turn the machine off for the last time at the end of the night. (This is also apparent from the Sessions Times data.)

All of this adds up to: You do not yet seem to be consistently using the machine all night, every night; and for most people, you need to use the machine all night, every night in order to feel at your best during the day time. Or, if you are using the CPAP every time you are asleep, your sleep is badly fragmented and very inconsistent from night to night; and that's enough to make you feel not at your best.

So the questions become: Why is your usage so variable? Are you taking the mask off and sleeping for long periods of time without CPAP on the nights where usage time is low and/or there are big gaps in the Sessions Times data?

Other good questions are: Would you feel better with a more regular bedtime and a more regular wake up time? Is your sleep highly fragmented? And if so, why is it fragmented? How often do you remember waking up during the night?

palerider wrote:

KSparkles wrote:Here are a few screen shots,

please don't do the clip art thing, please paste full screen screenshots, because you're clipping off vital information.

Palerider,
The day shown only has summary data available. So there are no daily graphs for this date.

Yes, we're missing vital information. But it's not because KSparkles clipped the screen shot. It's because KSparkles chose a day where no detailed data is available. (The date she chose is from March.)

KSparkles, can you post all the daily graphs from the last couple of nights instead of the daily summary data from a day in March?

robysue wrote:The day shown only has summary data available. So there are no daily graphs for this date.

fair enough, my bad, I didn't look close enough to check the date.

Thanks!

I go through phases where I remove mask in my sleep, but this is now infrequent with a new mask.

The reason for my on / off sessions at night is young children! I'd happily sleep through the night, but someone's usually heard a noise, had a bad dream or wet the bed! I think that accounts for low usage some days as I get woken up and then in the sleepy haze I just collapse back into bedtime.

I'll go load up the full data from last night.

You guys are great!

[quote="KSparkles"]...and then in the sleepy haze I just collapse back into bedtime./quote]

try really hard to make it a habit to always mask up when laying down, that way your sleepy haze won't trip you up in the future

Okay here is last night, what i would consider a normal good one... i wonder if you agree! At 2am my son had a bad dream!

KSparkles wrote:Okay here is last night, what i would consider a normal good one... i wonder if you agree! At 2am my son had a bad dream!

it's good you mentioned that the 2am wakeup was kid related, else Den would be in here telling you to use cpap mode because that pressure increase woke you up!

for me, any time the night is under 1.5, it's probably a good night. at least not bad because of apnea.

that said, there is likely room for improvement, your effective base pressure is 4, thanks to the 2epr and min6 pressure you've got set. generally if you use epr, it's a good idea to raise the minimum pressure, you'll see that many of the OAs you had were when the pressure dropped down..

if it were me, I'd bump up the min pressure by two, or maybe three, depending on how it felt. I'd probably do it in one day, but many others here would recommend a slower increase, giving you more time to get used to the pressure changes. I generally feel that's less important when you're used to an auto machine that's already swinging pressure all up and down.