What in the world does this mean??

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LibbyLou
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What in the world does this mean??

Post by LibbyLou » Fri May 01, 2015 5:46 am

I have tried to take a little break from posting like crazy about my data, but this is the second time over the past few days I've seen this. There was no mention on the report of any instance of breathing not being detected, so what is this gap in the waveform?

Image

My AHI was also 4.5 last night for some reason, which is way higher than it's ever been, and at the beginning of the night the waveform is all crazy looking. I wish I could figure this all out!
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JDS74
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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by JDS74 » Fri May 01, 2015 5:55 am

It seems to mean that you lost about 4 minutes of wave form data in the middle of a session.
The wave data is written to the SD card in a different file (xxxx.005) than the other data (xxxx.001 & xxxx.002) so some error in recording there will not effect the other data.

Take a look at the SD card for this session and see if there is only one xxx.005 file for the night. If there are two of them, then the CPAP restarted writing the wave data for some reason.

Otherwise, ask Pugsy if her aliens were home all night and didn't slip out for a quick trip to your house . Sometimes they do that. They spent some time at my house this week with weird results in my recordings.

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LibbyLou
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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by LibbyLou » Fri May 01, 2015 6:28 am

JDS74 wrote:It seems to mean that you lost about 4 minutes of wave form data in the middle of a session.
The wave data is written to the SD card in a different file (xxxx.005) than the other data (xxxx.001 & xxxx.002) so some error in recording there will not effect the other data.

Take a look at the SD card for this session and see if there is only one xxx.005 file for the night. If there are two of them, then the CPAP restarted writing the wave data for some reason.

Otherwise, ask Pugsy if her aliens were home all night and didn't slip out for a quick trip to your house . Sometimes they do that. They spent some time at my house this week with weird results in my recordings.
Thanks, I will check out the SD card info!

The aliens very well could be an explanation, though.
You should always waste time when you don't have any. Time is not the boss of you. Rule 408.

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robysue
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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by robysue » Fri May 01, 2015 9:06 am

Also check out the leak graph for the same period that the wave flow data is missing. If the leaks were much larger than normal, the machine may have just lost track of your breathing.

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Pugsy
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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by Pugsy » Fri May 01, 2015 9:21 am

Well that is an odd one. There's an OA flagged in that blank space. I have no idea what could have happened beyond a big big leak and then I am surprised it would flag an OA if the leak was that big.
I am afraid the aliens may have to take the blame for this one.

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LibbyLou
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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by LibbyLou » Fri May 01, 2015 12:57 pm

JDS74 wrote: Take a look at the SD card for this session and see if there is only one xxx.005 file for the night. If there are two of them, then the CPAP restarted writing the wave data for some reason.
I looked at the data and see only one xxx.005 file for last night, and the other night (well, morning) when it happened.
robysue wrote:Also check out the leak graph for the same period that the wave flow data is missing. If the leaks were much larger than normal, the machine may have just lost track of your breathing.
I checked the leak graph out, but honestly, I'm still not sure what I'm seeing when I look at these. This is it:

Image

This was where it happened the other time:

Image

Image

These waveforms are making me crazy! I am becoming obsessed with checking them and trying to figure out what they mean, but I'm lost. For instance, when craziness happens like this, what is going on exactly?

Image


Pugsy wrote:Well that is an odd one. There's an OA flagged in that blank space. I have no idea what could have happened beyond a big big leak and then I am surprised it would flag an OA if the leak was that big.
I am afraid the aliens may have to take the blame for this one.
You should always waste time when you don't have any. Time is not the boss of you. Rule 408.

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Pugsy
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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by Pugsy » Fri May 01, 2015 1:09 pm

I don't see a large leak flag and I don't see anytime where the leak was anywhere near big enough for the machine to lose track of things.

I would suspect a little firmware writing to the SD card glitch. I think the usual suspects "the aliens" are what we are going to have to call it.

This flow rate stuff will drive you crazy if you let it and I suggest that you try not to obsess over every little change.
The last one you showed...I don't know what part of it concerns you but the last noticeably irregular segment on the first line and the beginning segment on the second line where it is sort of flat and then more irregular...I think that is an arousal of some sort. You may or may not remember it.
After the irregularity on that second line ends and nice even breathing returns...you were probably back to sleep.

Understanding the subtle differences in breathing patterns on the flow rate graphs takes a LOT of practice and education and a truckload of patience.

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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by yaconsult » Fri May 01, 2015 1:25 pm

I see the same thing, rarely. For some reason, the machine stops recording some data but keep recording everything else. It's got to be a bug in the cpap software triggered by some rare combination of events. The data written is very simple - it's basically just a timestamp and an event and/or value at that time.

Here is a thread where I asked about the same issue and others said they also saw it sometimes: viewtopic/t105459/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1 ... t=+missing

Bottom line - it happens sometimes - don't worry about it unless it starts happening a lot.

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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by chunkyfrog » Fri May 01, 2015 1:43 pm

I may be all wet (snicker--I'm a frog), but don't rule out a power outage.
Many clocks reset themselves, so you might not get that flashing 12:00.

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LibbyLou
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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by LibbyLou » Fri May 01, 2015 1:48 pm

Pugsy wrote:I don't see a large leak flag and I don't see anytime where the leak was anywhere near big enough for the machine to lose track of things.

I would suspect a little firmware writing to the SD card glitch. I think the usual suspects "the aliens" are what we are going to have to call it.

This flow rate stuff will drive you crazy if you let it and I suggest that you try not to obsess over every little change.
The last one you showed...I don't know what part of it concerns you but the last noticeably irregular segment on the first line and the beginning segment on the second line where it is sort of flat and then more irregular...I think that is an arousal of some sort. You may or may not remember it.
After the irregularity on that second line ends and nice even breathing returns...you were probably back to sleep.

Understanding the subtle differences in breathing patterns on the flow rate graphs takes a LOT of practice and education and a truckload of patience.
Thanks, Pugsy! I do tend to get obsessive over things.....but I will try not to from here on out with this stuff.

Yeah, I was just wondering what is going on during times like that, where it's super irregular all of a sudden. So basically, when there are times that it looks crazy, and then like I'm barely breathing because the line is almost flat, I could very well just be tossing and turning a bit?
yaconsult wrote:I see the same thing, rarely. For some reason, the machine stops recording some data but keep recording everything else. It's got to be a bug in the cpap software triggered by some rare combination of events. The data written is very simple - it's basically just a timestamp and an event and/or value at that time.

Here is a thread where I asked about the same issue and others said they also saw it sometimes: viewtopic/t105459/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1 ... t=+missing

Bottom line - it happens sometimes - don't worry about it unless it starts happening a lot.
Thanks. I will check out that thread, too!
chunkyfrog wrote:I may be all wet (snicker--I'm a frog), but don't rule out a power outage.
Many clocks reset themselves, so you might not get that flashing 12:00.
Hmm, maybe. But any time our power does blink out, even if no other clocks are blinking, the microwave always is, and it hasn't been on these mornings. But that's a thought.
You should always waste time when you don't have any. Time is not the boss of you. Rule 408.

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robysue
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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by robysue » Fri May 01, 2015 2:36 pm

LibbyLou,

It would be much easier to match up the appropriate part of the leak data with the missing wave flow if you would load the data into SleepyHead.

I occasionally see this kind of weirdness when my leaks are well above normal, but are still "small" enough to not be flagged as official Large Leaks by my PR System One BiPAP.

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LibbyLou
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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by LibbyLou » Fri May 01, 2015 3:52 pm

robysue wrote:LibbyLou,

It would be much easier to match up the appropriate part of the leak data with the missing wave flow if you would load the data into SleepyHead.

I occasionally see this kind of weirdness when my leaks are well above normal, but are still "small" enough to not be flagged as official Large Leaks by my PR System One BiPAP.
I still can't get SH to work for some reason.
You should always waste time when you don't have any. Time is not the boss of you. Rule 408.

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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by yaconsult » Fri May 01, 2015 4:04 pm

I will try to help get sleepyhead working. What problems are you having?

You need to unzip the sleepyhead zip file, go into that folder, right-click on the SleepyHead-OpenGL program and choose "send to desktop (create shortcut)". Then you can double-click it on the desktop.

If you get an error message, what is it?

This is one common error:
Missing DLL files?
If you get a message something like "MSVCR120.dll is missing," you need to install the "Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package" available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... x?id=40784 Explanation: Some versions of Windows do not have all the necessary files. These files need to be installed with Microsoft's installer, at the link above. The missing files may not always be "MSVCR120.dll", but it will be something similar starting with "MSV" and ending with ".dll".
This is the main sleepyhead website: http://www.sleepfiles.com/SH2/

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LibbyLou
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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by LibbyLou » Mon May 04, 2015 5:31 am

Well now it seems to be working! I think so, anyway.

It had been giving me an error about my machine not being supported and then it wouldn't show me anything. This morning I tried running it again and it did give me the same error, but then it loaded my data. So I assume it's working??

Now I'm not sure what I'm looking at as far as the graphs go.
You should always waste time when you don't have any. Time is not the boss of you. Rule 408.

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Re: What in the world does this mean??

Post by robysue » Mon May 04, 2015 9:05 am

LibbyLou wrote: Now I'm not sure what I'm looking at as far as the graphs go.
We need a screen shot of the Daily Data graphs.

First, go to a night where there's a gap in the wave flow (flow rate) data and zoom in on about a 10-15 minute window where the gap is in the middle of the graph. Ideally we'd like to see about 3-5 minutes of data before the beginning of the gap and another 2-3 minutes of data after the gap.

Then arrange the graphs so that you can see all the following graphs on your screen. You may need to change the size of the graphs just a bit to see them all.

Needed graphs:
Event table
Flow Rate (this is where the gap will be)
Leak Graph
Pressure Curve---only important if you are using APAP

When you zoom in on the Flow Rate graph, all the other graphs should automatically zoom in to the exact same part of the night. When you have the graphs ready, take the screen shot and upload the resulting image file to a photo sharing site so that you can link to it.

It might also be useful to give us a screen shot of the same set of graphs for the whole night's worth of data.

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