Advance Information on Machine readouts.

This site has been a great help with the basics of working on the problem of Sleep Apnea.

I have gotten pretty close BUT I cannot go any farther blind.

I really need to understand ALL the readout I am getting and to have some idea what would I want to see in them, and best some suggestion of what I should try to do for each.

Has anyone ever put a machine on someone whom has NO sleep apnea??

In other words what is normal?

Rich

Interesting question.... if a person did not have sleep apnea, the machine readout would be 0 ahi, 0 ai and 0 ci. If a person with minute sleep apnea would have less than 5 ahi, and probably closer to zero. There are so many variations of this disease, I don't know what is "normal", but we use the machine to try and achieve the minimal amount of apnea incidences at night and treat the ones we do have. Did I answer your question or was I way off base?

Sheriff

Most people are supposed to have the odd apnea at night, certainly over time, but with (as Sheriff says) so many other factors to account for, finding 'normal' in those without official apnea is probably impossible.

Thanks your on the track...

First is that I seem to have good numbers..yesterday my AHI was .80...

Yet I was not having a good day, I want and need to be a Energizer Bunny, and I should be but I was about 70% Zombie. I was unable to work...mind just was not sharp.

So something is not right.

And a number of readings I get from Sleepyhead seem to show something going on.

I fear that I am getting arousals that even thou I seem to be getting good sleep by the numbers I am not getting restorative sleep.

I wake up two to four times each night.

I guess I need a real Doctor's Sleep Apnea Training Manual..I think the answer might be in the readout but cannot really read them.

Like this:



Like what does all that gray in the flow rate mean??

And look at how the Mask Pressure is displayed...what is up with those two??

My take on my Pulse Rate and O2 numbers I think are great..o2 stays above 90% all night...

But then there is these:



It looks like a good read out I even have got my Breathing Rate down to a new low of 15 BPM by using a fixed BR OF 15BPM (used to be as high as 26 last year and was 17BPM just a couple of weeks ago..and to night I am reading even lower to 13 BPM, which is lower than my fixed rate of 14BPM...is that good or bad??



But note the first sleep cycle is up and the second sleep cycle hit the bottom and stays there...is that good or bad??

Next and nearly last this:



I cannot make heads or tails of these readouts...good or bad...The Tidal Volume Good or bad, looks funny...

Note the sleep sessions...what does Blue mean and the yellow in the sessions??

Last is this:



See how weird the Insp.Time and Exp.Time look...it looks wrong some how...is it??

So even with great AHI numbers it looks like something is going on..something that is preventing me from real restorative sleep..BUT I cannot tell what..

This is where we go deep into understanding what these readouts are trying to tell us...

IF I was the E.Bunny I would not question all of this but in spite of what seems to be great numbers I am still tired most of the time..

And if I did not have E.Bunny days every once in a while I would not believe they were possible BUT I DO have those E.Bunny days so it is possible...

And I hope I can make them happen more often.

Help me and you could really help all.

Thanks for your interest and help.

Rich

I can't answer all of these questions, because I don't understand them all myself. I can tell you that the blue and the red in session information are the sleep sessions. The numbers in each tell you how long the sleep session was. The white in the middle is the break in sessions, or your wake period when you took the mask off.

As for restorative sleep and feeling better, you don't say how long you have been using your machine, but the thing to remember is that you have a sleep debt to pay and it will take a while, perhaps several weeks or months, before you start to feel like you're getting good sleep and can be an Energizer Bunny again.

I was diagnosed in Jan. 2014, started using cpap in Feb. but it took several months to really start feeling better, although I noticed improvement in my sleep after a few weeks. I do not feel the need to understand all of the charts, but have looked up the meaning of things like tidal volume and flow rate. That didn't help me understand those charts, and I've decided I don't really need to. As long as those charts stay roughly the same I know I'm on track. The professionals who check my data can interpret those and I ask if everything is OK. If it is, I don't worry about it.

I mainly look at leak rate and events. From there, I look at my wake times to see if there's a correlation between those and the leak rate/events.

Thanks, I have been using a ASV for over over a year and had to replace a malfunctioning 950 with a 960.

So I have given it enough time to get very used to it and I am 100 complaint.

As i have no sleep doctor as my first one was a quack I am doing the Titration my self and trying to get things fine tuned.

Rich

library lady wrote:I can't answer all of these questions, because I don't understand them all myself. I can tell you that the blue and the red in session information are the sleep sessions. The numbers in each tell you how long the sleep session was. The white in the middle is the break in sessions, or your wake period when you took the mask off.

As for restorative sleep and feeling better, you don't say how long you have been using your machine, but the thing to remember is that you have a sleep debt to pay and it will take a while, perhaps several weeks or months, before you start to feel like you're getting good sleep and can be an Energizer Bunny again.

I was diagnosed in Jan. 2014, started using cpap in Feb. but it took several months to really start feeling better, although I noticed improvement in my sleep after a few weeks. I do not feel the need to understand all of the charts, but have looked up the meaning of things like tidal volume and flow rate. That didn't help me understand those charts, and I've decided I don't really need to. As long as those charts stay roughly the same I know I'm on track. The professionals who check my data can interpret those and I ask if everything is OK. If it is, I don't worry about it.

I mainly look at leak rate and events. From there, I look at my wake times to see if there's a correlation between those and the leak rate/events.

racprops wrote: Like what does all that gray in the flow rate mean??

who knows? you've obscured a lot of valuable data by leaving the calendar on, hit the ^ by the date)
zoom in on those areas and look at what flags are being displayed, it may be pulse rate and spo2 changes, it maybe something else, all depends on what flags you have turned on for that chart.

racprops wrote: And look at how the Mask Pressure is displayed...what is up with those two??

what about it? again, what flags do you have on?

racprops wrote: It looks like a good read out I even have got my Breathing Rate down to a new low of 15 BPM by using a fixed BR OF 15BPM (used to be as high as 26 last year and was 17BPM just a couple of weeks ago..and to night I am reading even lower to 13 BPM, which is lower than my fixed rate of 14BPM...is that good or bad??

resp rate is individual, there isn't a global 'this is the right rate' otherwise there wouldn't be a setting to adjust a backup rate.

racprops wrote: But note the first sleep cycle is up and the second sleep cycle hit the bottom and stays there...is that good or bad??

it's bad, look at your patient triggered breaths, (which you seem to have totally ignored) you weren't trying to breath, perhaps you've got the backup rate too high, the machine was initiating almost all the breaths for you the second session.

racprops wrote: I cannot make heads or tails of these readouts...good or bad...The Tidal Volume Good or bad, looks funny...

tidal volume is something, again, very individual, different people have different sized lungs, and the tv, and mv all change depending on how fast you breath, and how deeply.

racprops wrote: Note the sleep sessions...what does Blue mean and the yellow in the sessions??

nothing, it just makes it easier to see the different sessions in the list.

racprops wrote: See how weird the Insp.Time and Exp.Time look...it looks wrong some how...is it??

you'd probably do well to study the screenshots of other people, or check out a Respiratory therapy textbook at the library, or both.

racprops wrote: So even with great AHI numbers it looks like something is going on..something that is preventing me from real restorative sleep..BUT I cannot tell what..

it's not always cpap.