Can someone help me get my data?

I have a DreamStation - I didn't know when the doctor gave it to me that Sleepyhead wouldn't work with it. I didn't know anything about CPAPs until 3 weeks ago. I tried downloading Encore Basic since I can't use Sleepyhead and the download worked. I inserted my SD card into my computer and tried to run it, and I get this error in Encore Basic that my card is corrupted. The doctor's office had no trouble reading it last week. Am I stuck using Dream Mapper? It seems totally useless. I changed the mask type I use on Dream Mapper and it went back and changed my AHIs for every single day since I started using the CPAP.

Encore Basic won't work with the DreamStation yet.
I think you are going to need the latest version of Encore Pro as it was released after the DreamStation was released and I assume it is compatible withe the Dream Station.
I haven't been able to confirm though.
If you want to try Encore Pro (it can be a bitch sometimes) I can try to walk you through it.
Send me a private message if you wish to be a guinea pig.

EncoreGuide link this will show you examples of what you will see. For a different machine than yours but the basics are the same.
http://www.healthcare.philips.com/pwc_h ... _Guide.pdf

Hey Pugsy, thank you! Why the heck not? It's for the greater good! I'll PM you. And why did I get a Dreamstation??? @#($*&@$(&!!!!

Because it's the latest thing, dearie.

chunkyfrog wrote:Because it's the latest thing, dearie.

We always want the latest and greatest and it comes back to bite us in the you-know-what!

Ladies, do you know if Dream Mapper is even accurate? I have tried using it....it says I have lots of centrals on the nights when I struggle to fall asleep. Last night it said my AHI was 14! My non-CPAP AHI is 42, so this is still an improvement and I'll take it, but I want therapeutic numbers.

During my sleep study I only slept 166 minutes - during that time I had 4 central apneas, 5 obstructive apeans and hundreds upon hundreds of hypopneas. My RDI was 72! My AHI on my back was 50! So yeah, I need to get this figured out. The respiratory therapist did tell me that I have centrals when I'm surfing between being awake and asleep and that they taper off once I'm asleep. Last night I felt awake all night...maybe hence the high AHI. I don't know.

When we sleep poorly we do a lot of tossing and turning and breathing irregularly and sighing (frustration) and the machine can mistake our awake/semi awake breathing irregularities as some sort of apnea event and it commonly ends up flagging a lot of centrals. These aren't "real" centrals.
Now there is the normal sleep onset central which is real but normally we don't have a problem with those centrals unless we have a large number or they keep bounding us out of sleep.

Usually the awake/semi awake centrals are fairly easy to spot if they are clustered right around known awake times. I once was helping a guy whose AHI was 20 something and it was primarily central and really scary looking. I noticed that he had several breaks in therapy and the clusters were especially dense right before the machine was turned off briefly and again when turned back on. Come to find out he was spending a lot of tie awake and fighting insomnia. So we had him not spend time awake trying to get to sleep (he was spending like an hour fighting sleep) and his AHI dropped to 2 something. The bulk of all his AHI was awake/semi awake breathing irregularities. So that poor sleep could be something as simple as awake breathing.

But we need to see the software reports especially in your situation so we can determine if we can pooh pooh them off as awake breathing or not.

I sent you a PM with some information about Encore Pro. Check your inbox.

And yes...Dream Mapper is accurate in that it is reporting what the machine gathers but sometimes the machine gets fooled by awake/semi awake breathing irregularities.

Pugsy wrote:When we sleep poorly we do a lot of tossing and turning and breathing irregularly and sighing (frustration) and the machine can mistake our awake/semi awake breathing irregularities as some sort of apnea event and it commonly ends up flagging a lot of centrals. These aren't "real" centrals.
Now there is the normal sleep onset central which is real but normally we don't have a problem with those centrals unless we have a large number or they keep bounding us out of sleep.

Usually the awake/semi awake centrals are fairly easy to spot if they are clustered right around known awake times. I once was helping a guy whose AHI was 20 something and it was primarily central and really scary looking. I noticed that he had several breaks in therapy and the clusters were especially dense right before the machine was turned off briefly and again when turned back on. Come to find out he was spending a lot of tie awake and fighting insomnia. So we had him not spend time awake trying to get to sleep (he was spending like an hour fighting sleep) and his AHI dropped to 2 something. The bulk of all his AHI was awake/semi awake breathing irregularities. So that poor sleep could be something as simple as awake breathing.

But we need to see the software reports especially in your situation so we can determine if we can pooh pooh them off as awake breathing or not.

I sent you a PM with some information about Encore Pro. Check your inbox.

Thank you for your helpful and very kind response. I am downloading the software now. I responded to your PM. I owe you Pugsy!!! I would like to get my AHI down to a reasonable level and it sounds like I might have some similar issues like the guy you mention above. I'm looking forward to knowing what's really going on with me. I spent all night last night fighting to sleep. Sigh...