Newbie Questions

Hi,

I was diagnosed with mild sleep apnea and finally got a machine. The reason being because I am so tired during the daytime. I suffer from debilitating fatigue. My sleep apnea was mild so I was told many people with my level do not even get a machine but because of my fatigue they would give it a try. I am really hoping it's the reason so I can start living the way I used to again. That is with energy. So anyway I got my machine about a week ago and so far find it easy to wear. No problems. The first night I had 8 episodes per hour which I of course looked up and found was indeed mild sleep apnea. My question is since the machine registered 8 episodes, does that mean it stopped 8 episodes and kept me breathing or did I in fact have 8 episodes even with the machine on.

The following few nights my episodes were negligible 1.5 & .8 or close to nothing. Then last night it said I had 15 episodes per hour. Is it normal to have such varying numbers?

So there is two questions... 1. does the machine count episodes it prevented? 2. Is it normal to have such varying numbers?

Thanks!
best,
-Mary

The events per hour number is the average per hour of the events that happened or slipped past the defenses. We have no way to know how many apnea events were prevented.

What machine are you using? Are you using the software to see what kind of events are getting flagged?
It's important to know what kind.

It's also possible that if you are spending some awake time with the mask and machine on that the machine is flagging awake/semi awake breathing irregularities by mistake. So some of those flagged events may not really mean anything.

It is normal to have varying AHI numbers.
It is not normal to have an AHI of 15 though. Makes me really wonder what type of event got flagged and was a lot of it due to awake breathing. Really need to see the software reports to know what happened.

Information on some software that works with the major brands.
https://sleep.tnet.com/equipment