Hypopneas prior to middle of the night arousal

I've noticed that I often have some hypopneas prior to waking in the middle of the night. I've started to turn the machine off and on when I wake in the middle of the night (or to lift my mask off of my face) so I identify that time point in Sleepy Head.

Am I waking because of the events? Or, am I awake (although not consciously awake) and the machine is mistakenly scoring events? In the morning, when I'm lying there awake hoping to fall asleep without success, the machine scores a boat load of events. (Actually, is it Sleepy Head scoring these events or the machine?)

I wondered if there was any other sensor I could attach to myself at home to help me make a definitive determination. Oximeter?

I'm curious if I should adjust my pressure minimum, or perhaps a different manufactuer's Auto-titration algorithm might fit me better. Should I just try it and see?

Although I am male, I'm particularly interested in the Resmed Airsense for Her because I read that that women's algorithm is tailored to women having partial obstruction events and events that affect REM sleep. That seems to be what I have.

InsomniacGuy wrote:is it Sleepy Head scoring these events or the machine?)

SleepyHead is only reporting what the machine is scoring. You would get the same results if you used ResScan.
The machine calls them and software simply report what is called.

InsomniacGuy wrote:Am I waking because of the events? Or, am I awake (although not consciously awake) and the machine is mistakenly scoring events?

Are the events immediately prior to the known awake time?

Sometimes yes, e.g., see below. Sometimes the nearest preceding event is 30 minutes or more prior -- probably not a factor in that case.

(Ignore the dense stretch of OAs in the chart -- pretty certain I was lying awake then...)

By the way, are pressure pulses the machine determining OA vs. CA? And what are PRS1_0b events?

Thanks.

InsomniacGuy wrote: are pressure pulses the machine determining OA vs. CA?

Correct

InsomniacGuy wrote:And what are PRS1_0b events?

Don't have a clue. Encore doesn't report them. Suspicion is some sort of informational file of some kind but we don't know what it means and only recently has been found on some machines.

InsomniacGuy wrote:Sometimes the nearest preceding event is 30 minutes or more prior -- probably not a factor in that case.

We have no way to know just how awake we might be in these situations with the hyponeas. Though I agree that those more than 30 minutes prior to awake enough to turn off the machine are unlikely to be a factor.

That said...if this report above is fairly typical for you then I would increase that minimum pressure a little and see what happens.
The awakenings could be totally unrelated to what you see on the reports but it wouldn't hurt anything to try just a little more minimum to see if holding the airway open a little more efficiently helps or not.
It also would reduce the pressure variations that come with apap mode and if by chance you are one of those people who find that the changing of the pressures actually is a disruptive factor to your sleep then perhaps your sleep quality will improve a little.