Negative home tests, a dud?

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tiredandscared
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Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by tiredandscared » Sat May 23, 2015 7:40 am

I'm writing this, because i suspect that my home test that I had might have been negative. I had almost all clinical symptoms of OSA save for 2.

Signs indicative and factorial
1. Always waking up tired.
2. Snoring(mostly positional and depending on how my head placement is relative to body).
3. Day time fatigue.
4. Lack of concentration.
5. Dizzyness.
6. Obese
7. Mood disturbance.

Signs that are counterindicative:
1. Low Apnea(observed by parents and people who've seen me sleep. few apneas).
2. Negative home test study.
3. Snoring not consistent.
4. Normal blood pressure and Sugar levels.

Results from home study test(equipment: Embletta gold)
AHI: 2 per hour.
supine AHI: 5.3 hour
snoring: 11%
average saturation: 96.3%
lowest saturation: 91%
pulse average:79
time spent supine: 9%
apneas: 6%
hypoapnea: 94%

I honestly am not sure whether this test has accurately assesed it or not. According to studies testing the efficiency of Embletta equipment, it is near equal to polysomnographies in accuracy of diagnosing OSA(90% for embletta and 92% for polysomnography). But I have almost every symptom of OSA.

Is it possible for snoring or borderline OSA, to cause the same symptoms as OSA?

beachbummer
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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by beachbummer » Sat May 23, 2015 8:40 am

I'm totally a newb, but your AHI of 2 and your normal min oxygen concentration would indicate you do not have OSA based on what I understand. However a Sleep Study may still uncover anomalies in your sleep that cause your symptoms.Did your home study reveal the time you spent on each sleep phase?

Good Luck!

tiredandscared
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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by tiredandscared » Sat May 23, 2015 8:47 am

beachbummer wrote:I'm totally a newb, but your AHI of 2 and your normal min oxygen concentration would indicate you do not have OSA based on what I understand. However a Sleep Study may still uncover anomalies in your sleep that cause your symptoms.Did your home study reveal the time you spent on each sleep phase?

Good Luck!
Nope, embletta is only designed to diagnose snoring and sleep apnea. One fluke is I didn't sleep in the position that usually gives me problems(head tilted down, from a bad pillow). But if it's equvalient to sleeping supine, it shouldn't the primary problem. So now i'm going try to get a monitored polysomonography through public healthcare here. It will take a shitload of time, but hopefully it will give a better answer. But atleast the embletta study tells me it's not as severe as i think. I've read that conditional OSA or Mild OSA can go undetected. The false negative rate for embletta is 11% .

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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by grayghost4 » Sat May 23, 2015 9:24 am

So now i'm going try to get a monitored polysomonography through public healthcare here.

where is here ? can you afford to get a used auto cpcp on craigslist. ... might be the easest thing to do and start using it and see if it help you .
There is a lot of help here to get your started.
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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by chunkyfrog » Sat May 23, 2015 10:14 am

Some apneas usually occur during REM sleep, sometimes most, or even all.
If you had no REM sleep, the results would be misleading.
The lab study is a good plan.
Are you in the UK?

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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by tiredandscared » Sat May 23, 2015 10:15 am

grayghost4 wrote:So now i'm going try to get a monitored polysomonography through public healthcare here.

where is here ? can you afford to get a used auto cpcp on craigslist. ... might be the easest thing to do and start using it and see if it help you .
There is a lot of help here to get your started.



Sweden. And unfortunately it's expensive to get a CPAP here. I have limited resources I can expend on it. The home-study itself cost me alot of money itself.
chunkyfrog wrote: Some apneas usually occur during REM sleep, sometimes most, or even all.
If you had no REM sleep, the results would be misleading.
The lab study is a good plan.
Are you in the UK?
Might have gotten REM sleep, but I don't know if i slept at all that night. I woke up atleast 4-5 times, and as awake sometimes. The total recorded sleep time was 8 hours and 32 minutes. But if i atleast got 3-4 hours sleep, it could give them an idea. But then again the average AHIs could also be calculated by total time, including the hours I was awake. Which would skew the results.


Getting a polysomnography here takes months. I'm not sure what to do in the meanwhile. Maybe if i'm lucky I'll get to do another home study, to confirm the results of this one. In the meanwhile I have to focus on losing weight.

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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by Pesser » Sat May 23, 2015 11:03 am

You have OSA!

When you were sleeping on your back....you had it. Back sleeping is very natural and in a lot of people it is needed. A new born baby is place on its back. Why? Because all the organs get to float on all the liquids inside you body. I had very low AHI. It was 3.8 with presure at 8 cmh20 (no sleep study; just a APAP at presure). I was awake for most of the 6 hours. I surely had it. By this I mean that if I had slept on my back without a machine at a presure of 8, my AHI would have likely been much greater than 3.8. Buy from http://www.secondwindcpap.com

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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by avi123 » Sat May 23, 2015 11:11 am

tiredandscared wrote:
grayghost4 wrote:
Getting a polysomnography here takes months. I'm not sure what to do in the meanwhile. Maybe if i'm lucky I'll get to do another home study, to confirm the results of this one. In the meanwhile I have to focus on losing weight.
Can you fly to a nearby country where a Private sleep study lab would test you?

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tiredandscared
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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by tiredandscared » Sat May 23, 2015 11:14 am

Pesser wrote:You have OSA!

When you were sleeping on your back....you had it. Back sleeping is very natural and in a lot of people it is needed. A new born baby is place on its back. Why? Because all the organs get to float on all the liquids inside you body. I had very low AHI. It was 3.8 with presure at 8 cmh20 (no sleep study; just a APAP at presure). I was awake for most of the 6 hours. I surely had it. By this I mean that if I had slept on my back without a machine at a presure of 8, my AHI would have likely been much greater than 3.8. Buy from http://www.secondwindcpap.com
I think supine(if we take the results at face value) it's borderline. Because 5 is a gray zone, and the lowest desats were 91(had it gone to 89-90, it would have been considered mild sleep apnea). You could call it borderline mild sleep apnea. But It would not warrant CPAP. And it was only 9% of the recorded time. At this point i'm not sure what to make of it. I'm hoping it stays that way, until I can get a proper investigation. Weightloss is my goal now.


avi123 wrote: Can you fly to a nearby country where a Private sleep study lab would test you?
I wish... but it costs alot of money. Something I can't afford at this pont. This private study that I did cost me alot itself. And they used the high-end equipment for it. But since I really had no one watching me, and because i had alot of time when I was awake, and the fact that sometimes the machine isn't calibrated, or doesn't really detect mild sleep apnea(failure rate is 11%) and the apneas could be during REM sleep. It's questionble. I need a polysomnography, but it takes months to get one. The city I live in, only has 4 sleep labs.
Last edited by tiredandscared on Sat May 23, 2015 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Pesser
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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by Pesser » Sat May 23, 2015 12:50 pm

It's difficult for me to understand why so many people put so much stock in sleep studies. It will tell you what happened for one night at the times when you were sleeping. What makes anyone think this is indicative of all nights is beyond me. In addition if you have AHI of 3 it can be very much a problem; for some people a AHI of 3 is real bad. You can have UARS without making a sound. It would be cool if you could borrow a machine and try it for a week! Or buy one at a cheap price!

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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by kteague » Sat May 23, 2015 1:03 pm

Seems to me sleep studies, and especially home sleep studies, can make a conclusive diagnosis of sleep apnea on limited time and data, but a negative result doesn't rule it out. It's only a snapshot of one night, and that night not have been representative of how one usually sleeps. In the results you gave, it doesn't say if your REM events were while supine. If your test actually says there was a chunk of time in REM while supine, then I'd feel more comfortable accepting the results. Considering your situation, you might want to try a couple things while you're deciding which way to proceed. A firm flat pillow that keeps the head from sliding or tilting sounds like a good choice for you. I do well with either a memory foam or buckwheat hull pillow. Another option is a cervical collar that supports the chin and keeps the neck straight. Some people take measures to stay off their back, like wearing a small backpack to prevent rolling onto their back. Even if you do have sleep apnea, if it is mild, one or all of these efforts may be effective in managing the problem. However, I would not assume so. You might check into pricing for either purchasing a recording oximeter that would tell you if your oxygen is dropping at night, or having a doctor order one for a few nights at home.

As more of a side note, do you have any issues with your legs moving a lot at night? Limb movements can disrupt sleep and result in some of the same symptoms as any other cause of sleep deprivation. Also, are you on any meds that are known to be disruptive to sleep quality?

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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by Pugsy » Sat May 23, 2015 1:03 pm

You might want to read up on UARS..Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome.
I am not saying that is what might be going on with you but it is very possible and unfortunately it is hard to diagnose even in a traditional in lab diagnostic sleep study that normally concentrates on obstructive/central apnea events.
It's usually a diagnosis that comes from ruling out regular OSA more than anything else unless someone actually has a sleep study done with the Pes tool.
Sleep studies with the Pes measurement tool aren't commonly done.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_airw ... e_syndrome

If you should decide to just get a machine (apap) and try it to see if it even helps then I would suggest that you target a machine that would flag RERAs and flow limitations. I don't know how critical having that data available might be but it might be useful and that's enough reason to target those machines.
Cost wise...used Phillips Respironics auto adjusting machines...like the PR System One model 560 would do it the least expensively. ResMed machines....you would need the newest AirSense 10 AutoSet for Her to get RERA flagging.
They are going to be more costly on the secondary market than the PR S1 560 will be.

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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by grayghost4 » Sat May 23, 2015 1:04 pm

It is the Insurance companys and/or anyone else that is paying the bill that will not pay unless you have an AHI > 5 during a sleep test.

The person that can't sleep and is tired all the time should not be that concerned with the sleep test ... except to get insurance to pay.
If they will not pay for some reason, then they have to take control of there own health and do what they feel is good for them self.
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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by avi123 » Sat May 23, 2015 1:25 pm

tiredandscared lives in SWEDEN


Sweden has a very efficient health care system for its population. Every one is covered. But you see here that this system which is a sort of socialized medicine has its drawbacks.


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tiredandscared
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Re: Negative home tests, a dud?

Post by tiredandscared » Sat May 23, 2015 3:03 pm

avi123 wrote:tiredandscared lives in SWEDEN


Sweden has a very efficient health care system for its population. Every one is covered. But you see here that this system which is a sort of socialized medicine has its drawbacks.


ResMed Sweden AB
Jan Stenbecks torg 17
164 40 Kista

+46 (0) 520 42 01 10
+46 (0) 520 39715
Private health-care is superior, if you can afford it. But if you can't , you're screwed. Socialized medicine isn't bad if it wasn't ran by budget concerned bureacrats. If i was rich, i'd rather live in america. If i was dirt-poor, i'd rather live in sweden. Socialized medicine is best for treating serious cases and common issues. It's not good when dealing with ambiguity.