CA count in SleepHead and sleep Hygeine

Hi all...

I am gradually getting my OAs down to a fairly "normal" rate..Some nights 3 or 4 ...However my CAs in SleepyHead are prone to huge spikes.
144 last night, and I feel horrible today. It looks like I have a couple of these nights where they are around 30 or so, but mainly I have a CA rate in the 90 - 150 range.

I am trying to understand what is different about those real bad nights compared to the relatively good ones.

I have been taking a sleeping medication (Zopiclone), finally could not stand not sleeping at all...but I don't want to continue with it as it is very habit forming.

The tech where I got my equipment considers my OA issue under control, and does not think I actually have CAs...

So this leads me to other sleeping issues, and I guess I am going to have to figure it out on my own, I have no sleep doc, and cannot get a referral to one, my condition is not serious!!

I am on a list for a sleep study, but that could be a while, there are none available for purchase in my city/country...

I am thankful I don't have to satisfy an employer at this time, I can't imagine having to work feeling like this...

Onwards...

Stephen

So how come you ended up with OSA diagnosis?
Home study perhaps?
Whatever was done to get the OSA diagnosis...was there any mention of centrals?
Never had a formal in lab sleep study where they tested you at various pressures?
Are you sleeping at night or spending an inordinate amount of time awake with machine on?
Can you please post an image/screen shot of a typical night for you?
If you don't know how we talked about it here in this thread along with examples of what we like to see.
Screen shot thread viewtopic.php?f=1&t=81072&p=737779#p737779
I see you are in Canada. I know they do things a little differently up there.

If you think any part of the problem comes under the heading of Sleep Hygiene here are some links to reading material:

Links for information about Sleep Hygiene
Info on Sleep Hygiene
Sleep Hygiene Recommendations
Sleep Hygiene Tips

Pugsey wrote:

So how come you ended up with OSA diagnosis?
Home study perhaps? Yes, just an Oximeter
Whatever was done to get the OSA diagnosis...was there any mention of centrals? No, none at all
Never had a formal in lab sleep study where they tested you at various pressures? No sleep study.I am trying to get one, but I am not a serous case...
Are you sleeping at night or spending an inordinate amount of time awake with machine on? really light sleep, and then awake, it varies...I had a couple of great nights on Z, but it is not good stuff to stay on



OK..

Aug 31 no Zopiclone



Aug 28 No Zopiclone


Aug 25 Zopiclone


I am wondering if I am just too sensitive for the machine, in that it keeps me awake??


Stephen

I couldn't get your images to load...is it me or the connection? If you click on the link do they load for you?

When you had your home sleep study was it just with the pulse oximeter or did they have you use a belt around your thoracic area to measure breathing efforts?

Hi there..

hmm, they work for me, I will try another site??

The test IU had was just the Pulse Oximeter

StephenR wrote:Hi there..

hmm, they work for me, I will try another site??

The test IU had was just the Pulse Oximeter

imgur.com is one of the easier sites, and you can just click and paste the bbcode links that it gives you.

you can even get creative with them, and embed a thumbnail that opens to a larger full res picture when clicked.

The links still don't work for me but it might just be me.
Can you get them just to show up in your posts here like mine below...saves us having to mess with links.
How to do it is explained here about the IMG links
Screen shot thread viewtopic.php?f=1&t=81072&p=737779#p737779

Here's what I do and you don't have to click on any links to see things.

he edited his post and added a link to a hyper annoying slideshow in photobucket.. ugh... great for vacation pictures... not so much for graphs one needs to study.

but, long strings of CAs at worst, or frequently sprinkled ones at best.

palerider wrote:but, long strings of CAs at worst, or frequently sprinkled ones at best.

If his home sleep study didn't have a thoracic belt to help with central detection then the absence of centrals on the home study report is meaningless. They can't count what they can't measure.

My question is....are we dealing with centrals that were present before the addition of cpap pressure or after? Obviously an important distinction that needs to be made if at all possible.
Too many centrals prior to beginning therapy obviously means ASV type of machine.
Too many centrals after beginning therapy means maybe ASV type of machine but might possibly be managed with cpap/bilevel.

We can do the usual to see if the centrals reduce in number with a reduction in pressure and that may help...I still couldn't get the images to load and now even the slideshow link is gone so I don't know what pressure is used and is it increasing or anything so I don't know what to offer as an idea.

I know in Canada they do things differently and waiting for a real sleep lab sleep study can be a long wait. Might as well try the usual basic stuff while waiting. Only thing is I can't offer any ideas until I see what is going on and at what settings.

OK, Images are up in my post...

A nice cup of tea was what was needed...

S

June 27, 2nd day on CPAP...



Oh boy...

You really, really need an in lab sleep study so they can figure out if those centrals or the real deal or not.
You really need to know if you would have them even without the cpap machine blowing pressure.

When you sleep with the sleep aid you have a truck load of centrals...and when you don't use a sleep aid you don't sleep as soundly so maybe the improvement without the sleep aid is nothing more than you don't get much sleep and it's when you sleep that you have the centrals.

Not many, if any OAs at your current pressure. But a good bit of hyponeas...makes me wonder if some of those hyponeas were more central in nature and not obstructive...or maybe they are just plain old low level OAs that didn't grow up to be full fledged OAs.
Unfortunately we are limited with trying to figure out that level of detail from the data the machines gather.

How did you come up with the pressure of 10 cm? Wonder if we could reduce it to see if anything improves?
I also wonder if without the sleep aid that you are having centrals which bounce you out of sleep. The sleep aid let's you maybe sleep through whatever it might be that is causing you to wake up???
Just speculating at this point.

Do you take any meds that might suppress respiration? Like pain meds containing opiates of some sort? Have you ever had a head injury? Oh, one other question...recreational drug use?
Maybe your diagnosis should be central sleep apnea and not obstructive sleep apnea.
Those home studies using the pulse ox only measure oxygen level drops...they don't really tell us why it dropped like was it because your airway tissues flopped in and occluded the airway (Obstructive sleep apnea) or maybe you just forgot to breathe and the airway was open (Central sleep apnea).

How long before you can get an in lab sleep study?

Pugsy wrote:

palerider wrote:but, long strings of CAs at worst, or frequently sprinkled ones at best.

If his home sleep study didn't have a thoracic belt to help with central detection then the absence of centrals on the home study report is meaningless. They can't count what they can't measure.

it appears his home study was just an oximeter: "Yes, just an Oximeter"

SR wrote:

"there's no way to tell from the included pics whether the near constant night of CA was one of his 'dosing' and maybe lots of swj. "

is there something I can post that would help??

Stephen