New to SleepyHead; Would Like Input, Please

Although CPAP has definitely made me feel better, and I'd never stop using it, I still ALWAYS wake up feeling exhausted whether I sleep four hours or eight. I know some of my medications are contributing to that now, but it's always been that way for me even before the meds for as long as I can remember (it's just worse now because of the meds).

So, I finally decided to get involved with Sleepyhead. Prior to this I was checking my data with Encore Basic. Anyway, it sure looks like to me that my respiratory rate is a lot higher than it should be. And I have no idea what the tidal wave should be or even if it should be anything specific. I figured out a lot of stuff on my own, but some of this stuff I just don't get at this point. Any thoughts or suggestions would be wonderful. Just trying to narrow things down to sleep or something else. Thanks.

Oh, and a question that some may find ridiculous, but I need to ask it. If you have zeros across the board on something (in my case, flow limitations) a graph isn't produced just to show that it's zero, correct?

I didn't really see anything that needed attention on your post. To answer your question on Flow Limitations. Respironics flags them in the event area but doesn't have a graph. ResMed machines have the graph. It would be better to use Imgur to post your images where we can enlarge them to see better. This site shows you how. https://sleep.tnet.com/resources/sleepyhead/shorganize It is 3 pages long so at the bottom of each page click on the link to the next one.

I also put together these hints.
On the left side turn off the calendar by clicking on the triangle by the date.
Also the pie chart doesn't give us very much info so you can turn it off by going to File - Preferences -Appearance - Uncheck Show event break down pie chart
That allows us to see the machine details on the left.

The graphs that are usually helpful are:
1. Event Flags
2. Flow Rate
3. Pressure (not mask pressure)
4. Leak
5. Flow Limit (only with Resmed machine)
Put your graph in that order by grabbing, by the labels, with your mouse and dragging it where you want it.
Now grab the line between the graphs and resize them until you get them in one screenshot.

Take a screen shot after you organize your graphs. You can push F11 ( or click file - view - fullscreen toggle) on your keyboard before you take your screenshot and it makes it full screen with no ID info.

Thanks, OkyDoky. Here is the Imgur image. Since tidal volume isn't on this one (couldn't fit it) hopefully that's okay to see in my first post since I was wondering about that one (and it does show over on the left under "Statistics." The max number is really high on that. So you don't see the respiratory rate as being too high? I just keep reading that normal resp rate is 12-20 for adults. But that may change if you're on xPAP, maybe?

I do sometimes have what PR-1 notates as periodic breathing and SH flags as CS (not any on this one), but after some research on here it appears that having them randomly isn't really a big deal. (Maybe one short event once every couple of nights.)

Just trying to make sure nothing major is sticking out with sleep, so if not I can go on to other avenues.

The increase in respirations apears cyclic and may be during REM. Here is a study where mice increased their respirations 2x during REM. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20217359
That Max tidal Volume is high but if you look at the 95% rate which means for 95% of the time you were at or below 420 and the median was 280. So that still makes me think it is during REM sleep.
This article on Sleep disordered breathing also was interesting. https://www.rotech.com/respiratory/docu ... thing1.pdf

Great RoTech article; thanks! The definitions at the end are especially helpful. Weird about that huge tidal volume spike. And I just noticed that at the same time, the flow rate and minute vent (whatever that is) also had a huge spike. Only lasted about 10 seconds it looks like when you really enlarge the graphs in SH. The mice study was pretty interesting as well.

WearyOne wrote:Great RoTech article; thanks! The definitions at the end are especially helpful. Weird about that huge tidal volume spike. And I just noticed that at the same time, the flow rate and minute vent (whatever that is) also had a huge spike. Only lasted about 10 seconds it looks like when you really enlarge the graphs in SH. The mice study was pretty interesting as well.

people breath differently during different sleep phases, unless there's some other reason to worry about it, I'd suggest not worrying. the tidal volume, minute vent, rr, isp time, exp time, etc charts are... interesting, but rarely significant, other than "oh, look, that's an cool trace".

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Thanks, palerider. Yep, that's the way I'll look at, just an interesting, cool bit of information.

I woke up feeling absolutely horrible this morning . . .with this report. Shaking my head. The two jumps in respiratory rate were right after intense dreams (REM, I'm guessing), as OkyDoky mentioned happens. The last one, though, I woke up feeling like I wasn't breathing. Nothing showing on the report to indicate a problem there that I can see, but maybe it was just not long enough to show up. Anyway, guess whatever is making be feel so horrible has nothing to do with this so I need to look elsewhere. (I love playing around with SH though. This is great!)