Too many events?

Am I still having too many apnea events during the night with my cpap. I was told I had a mild form of apnea and hypopnea. I've been using my Resmed autosense 10 for a a little over a week and I'm still having between 6 and 17 events per night. Is that a lot? Do I need my pressure adjusted?;

Seanm04 wrote:Am I still having too many apnea events during the night with my cpap. I was told I had a mild form of apnea and hypopnea. I've been using my Resmed autosense 10 for a a little over a week and I'm still having between 6 and 17 events per night. Is that a lot? Do I need my pressure adjusted?;

What was your diagnostic AHI? And how much time are you using the machine each night?

To put it in perspective:

If you are talking about 6-17 events with 8.5 hours of usage, then the treated AHI is between 6/8.5 = 0.71 and 17/8.5 = 2.06, both of which would be considered "effective" therapy. (And 6 events in 8.5 hours is very, very effective therapy.)

If you are talking about 6-17 events with 4.5 hours of usage, then the treated AHI is between 6/4.5 = 1.33 and 17/4.5 = 3.78. A treated AHI = 3.87 is technically "effective" since it's below 5.0, but most people will feel better if their daily AHI is lower than that.

And then finally there's another thing to consider: You say your apnea is "mild". That usually indicates an untreated AHI between 5 and 15. If your untreated AHI was very close to 5 and your treated AHI is above 3, that may not be enough of a difference for you to really feel. But if your untreated AHI was close to 15 and your treated AHI is around 2 (or below), then that's usually enough of a difference to make you feel better---if you were having a lot of symptoms prior to starting CPAP.

Seanm04 wrote:Am I still having too many apnea events during the night with my cpap. I was told I had a mild form of apnea and hypopnea. I've been using my Resmed autosense 10 for a a little over a week and I'm still having between 6 and 17 events per night. Is that a lot? Do I need my pressure adjusted?;

If you are trying to get down to "zero" events...it ain't going to happen. What Robysue said is true divide your total number of events by the number of hours you used the machine to get your AHI...(number of events per hour). anything under 5.0 is considered treated by the medical community, but you should be able to average 1.0-2.0 with a little experience. Sounds like you are doing great

I think the sleep therapist said I was like a 4 on a scale of 20. The 2 websites I use tell me how many apnea events I have per hour. Would I still do the formula you gave me? I haven't gotten much sleep since I've had the cpap and when I do I pull it off after a few hours. Maybe I just need to give it more time? But also I have epilepsy and my meds have been charged since the sleep study. Maybe my pressure is not high enough?

Seanm04 wrote:I think the sleep therapist said I was like a 4 on a scale of 20.

This sounds much more like your pressure setting on the CPAP than a diagnostic AHI. CPAPs can typically deliver a constant pressure at a setting that's anywhere between 4cm H2O and 20cm H20.

The diagnostic AHI is a number that would come from your sleep study reports. In general, a diagnostic (untreated) AHI that is between 5 and 15 is considered mild apnea; an AHI that is between 15 and 30 is considered moderate; and an AHI > 30 is considered severe. There are some people here who have untreated AHI's that are well over 60. If you have not seen a copy of the sleep study report, you need to request a copy for your own records. And have an appointment with a doctor (or nurse practioner or physician's assistant) who can explain the sleep study report to you.

The 2 websites I use tell me how many apnea events I have per hour.

Which web sites are you using? Can you post a screen shot of the what the web sites are telling you?

Would I still do the formula you gave me?

Without seeing the data that you are looking at I can't answer your question. If the web sites are reporting the AHI for the time you use the machine, then it's done the arithmetic for you. But in that case, the number that you are getting off the web site is not the number of events per night and when posting here about the data, you should be saying that your treated AHI is equal to <the number>.

I haven't gotten much sleep since I've had the cpap and when I do I pull it off after a few hours. Maybe I just need to give it more time? But also I have epilepsy and my meds have been charged since the sleep study. Maybe my pressure is not high enough?

Several things:

1) Yes, you may need to give it more time. People who are very luck start to feel better within a few days. Most people take a few weeks to a couple of months to start feeling better. Those of us who are unlucky (like me) can take 6-12 months to start feeling better. A few very unlucky people never start to feel much better.

2) You won't start feeling better until you are sleeping with the mask all night long. Pulling the mask off in your sleep is a pretty common problem for new CPAPers. The basic fix for this problem is a combination of time and a conscious decision to not pull the mask off when you are awake in the middle of the night. In other words, you have to train yourself when you wake up in the middle of the night to not pull the mask off as some kind of "reward" for wearing it a period of time at the beginning of the night. Basic rules should be: If you wake up in the middle of the night and the mask is off, you put it back on and go back to sleep. If you wake up in the middle of the night and the mask is on, you leave the mask on and go back to sleep.

3) You may indeed be more comfortable with a higher pressure level. And if the treated AHI is running 6-17, then that's evidence that you do need more pressure. Posting a screen shot of your data would help us help you better.

4) If there's been a change in the epilepsy meds since you had your sleep study, then there are two big changes going on right now for your body to adjust to. That could also be affect how quickly you adjust to CPAP. I don't know whether the epilepsy meds would directly affect your AHI (treated or untreated), but anything that can affect the quality of your sleep has the potential to affect your OSA and how well your CPAP can treat it at a given pressure.

Finally: Can you post what equipment you are using? Name and model of the machine would help us help you much more effectively. It would also help us help you if we could see some of the data that you are talking about.

I am using a Resmed autosense 10 and at the momentI cannot get pictures to past on this forum

Seanm04 wrote:I am using a Resmed autosense 10 and at the momentI cannot get pictures to past on this forum

The ResMed Airsense 10 machines have four models: Cpap, Elite, Autoset, and Autoset For Her
There is no autosense model so we still need the info on which one. If it is anything but the Cpap model it will have data you can pull from your SD card using computer software.
To post pictures this site will help. https://sleep.tnet.com/reference/tips/imgur

It's the autosense 10 autoset. Thats what it says on the machine

Seanm04 wrote:It's the autosense 10 autoset. Thats what it says on the machine

Go to the User Control Panel and add this to your profile. (Click on the Profile tab and then click on Edit Equipment). Then your machine will show up in the "signature" part of your post and you won't have to repeatedly answer this question when you are asking for help.

SleepyHead works with the Resmed AirSense 10 AutoSet machines, which is what I suspect you actually have. (There is no "autosense" machine that I'm aware of.)

When you turn the machine on, does the LCD display show a big 4? If so, that's probably your pressure setting. Or possibly your humidity setting.

And can you tell us what the two web sites you are using to read the data gathered by your machine? That will also help us determine the meaning of the 6-17 numbers that you talked about in the first post.

Seanm04 wrote:It's the autosense 10 autoset. Thats what it says on the machine

take a look again, you're saying things that don't exist, which makes it a guessing game as to what you have. we could guess that maybe you do have an autoset, but the autosense thing doesn't exist, which does it really say?

I'm sorry! It's an Airsense 10 autoset

Seanm04 wrote:I'm sorry! It's an Airsense 10 autoset

Ok, cool, when someone says things that are partially right, it's not a good idea to assume that the part we recognize is really what the person means... mistakes get made that way, and you end up going down the wrong paths, and only later say "wait... this isn't possible with what we thought you meant"...

now that you know what machine it is for sure, fill out the equipment section in your profile, and people won't keep asking you

Where do I go and I do I go about doing that? I haven't seen anything about user profiles or my profile

Seanm04 wrote:Where do I go and I do I go about doing that? I haven't seen anything about user profiles or my profile

This will help to show you.
wiki/index.php/Registering_Equipment_in_User_Profile

Thank you. I have updated my account now. I really appreciate your help!