Help interpreting Sleepyhead

Hi, can someone help me figure out if Sleepyhead has any useful information on something that happened this morning?

I was having trouble breathing to the point I was having nightmares about not being able to breathe. I finally woke up with a start, really out of breath and with a headache, feeling pretty crappy.

This happens once in a while so I thought I would check to see if Sleepyhead showed me what was happening, but I don't really understand how to read the data. I zoomed in to the section where this happened.

I've never tried to post an image before so I hope this works...

Thanks in advance for any help!

Can you post a chart just like those but of the whole night?

Sure- here you go. And thanks so much for your help!

sewsleepy wrote:Sure- here you go.

Do you have any problem tolerating pressure? If that was my chart, I would raise the minimum pressure to 6.0.

sewsleepy wrote:I was having trouble breathing to the point I was having nightmares about not being able to breathe. I finally woke up with a start, really out of breath and with a headache, feeling pretty crappy.

It could be that the machine is not raising the pressure quickly enough to head off apneas during a REM period you experienced just before awakening. A minimum pressure of 6 might help with this.

Thanks, ChicagoGranny, I will give this a try tonight and see what happens.

Just for my own understanding, can you explain what you see in those lines & squiggles? I don't know what to make of them even though I've watched a couple videos on interpreting the data.

sewsleepy wrote:can you explain what you see in those lines & squiggles

If you are speaking of the Flow Rate chart, that is your breathing. Each full cycle represents one breath. When the line is above the axis, that is inhalation; below is exhalation. Find an apnea on the events chart and zoom in on the corresponding time on the Flow Chart. During the apnea the line will be on the axis - you are neither inhaling nor exhaling.

When the breaths are steady, you are probably sleeping. When they are fluctuating, you are probably aroused and maybe moving in bed.

Hi Granny,

I tried raising my pressure to but it felt like it was forcing me to hyperventilate. I moved it down to 5.5 and it was better but was still uncomfortable, so I settled on 5. Here is my sleepyhead page for last night, does this seem to have helped? Any other thoughts? Thank you!

You are getting a low AHI and acceptable leak rate. How do you feel?

I do feel better since turning up the min pressure. But I wake a few times during the night with the awareness my breathing is blocked or difficult. I just don't understand what is happening at those times.

sewsleepy wrote:I do feel better since turning up the min pressure. But I wake a few times during the night with the awareness my breathing is blocked or difficult. I just don't understand what is happening at those times.

Do you have any health problems besides sleep apnea? What is your general health level and your physical conditioning shape?

sewsleepy wrote: But I wake a few times during the night with the awareness my breathing is blocked or difficult. I just don't understand what is happening at those times.

The next time you wake up like that, turn the machine off and then back on. Then the next day, this will serve as a maker on the Sleepyhead charts and you might be able to see what happened immediately before this "event".