Finally got around to checking out sleepyhead

Holy Moly.

I feel like a newbie but based on my post history, I've been doing this over a year!

Finally got around to trying to see my stats on sleepyhead. I will read the whole faq thread in detail but meantime wanted to post a couple things I saw:

1. AHI 1.48. I think that means after being corrected by CPAP. And that it's good?
I lost 30 lbs recently so I'm hoping it improves apnea and that I can reduce my level on the machine. Not sure if I can self diagnose or if I gotta pay $800 again for another sleep study. (insurance barely covered anything)

2. Seems like I'm getting a lot of leaks. Just got new mask so I gotta get used to it. Hope that will fix things.

3. This part freaks me out. Humidifier status. Disconnected.
WTF? If I've been buying water changing it daily for over a year and it never worked I'll be pissed. Wondering how reliable that report is. It does says humidifier level 4, which is what I set it to.

dwhla wrote:Holy Moly.

I feel like a newbie but based on my post history, I've been doing this over a year!

Finally got around to trying to see my stats on sleepyhead. I will read the whole faq thread in detail but meantime wanted to post a couple things I saw:

1. AHI 1.48. I think that means after being corrected by CPAP. And that it's good?
I lost 30 lbs recently so I'm hoping it improves apnea and that I can reduce my level on the machine. Not sure if I can self diagnose or if I gotta pay $800 again for another sleep study. (insurance barely covered anything)

2. Seems like I'm getting a lot of leaks. Just got new mask so I gotta get used to it. Hope that will fix things.

3. This part freaks me out. Humidifier status. Disconnected.
WTF? If I've been buying water changing it daily for over a year and it never worked I'll be pissed. Wondering how reliable that report is. It does says humidifier level 4, which is what I set it to.

Glad you are getting a look at your data.
1. Your AHI sounds good. Congrats on your weight loss. It may or may not decrease your pressure needs. There are normal weight people who need cpap because of their airway structure. Keep monitoring your data. What pressure settings are you using?
2. What do you mean by lots of leaks. What does Sleepyhead record for leaks?
3. The humidifier disconnected status is a known Sleepyhead bug. Just ignore it.

Thanks for the reply OkeyDoky!

1. Your AHI sounds good. Congrats on your weight loss. It may or may not decrease your pressure needs. There are normal weight people who need cpap because of their airway structure. Keep monitoring your data. What pressure settings are you using?

Thanks! Got 45 more to go.
My setting is 7.0 to 14 max.

2. What do you mean by lots of leaks. What does Sleepyhead record for leaks?

Notes from SleepyHead:

You had an AHI of 1.48 which is considered reasonably good.
You machine was on for 6 hours, 46 minutes and 43 seconds.
You had significant periods of MAJOR (in italics) mask leakage.
---
Back to me. The leakage might be due to getting used to new mask. Which I also need to look at instructions to see if I put it on wrong, though it’s when I’m turning that it seems to mess up.

As for what it records, hmm, let me see where to find that.

Leak Stats:
1. Avg leak rate 2.37 most recent, 1.76 last week (old mask), 1.22 last 30 days, 1.01 last 6 months, .98 last year.
2. 90% leak rate 3 most recent, 5 last week, 3 last 30, 2 last 6, 1 last year
3. % of time above Leak Rate threshold 2.7% most recent, 2.4 last wk, .98 last 30d, .74 last 6m, .82 last yr

3. The humidifier disconnected status is a known Sleepyhead bug. Just ignore it.

Oh thank god! Relieved.

Just keep an eye on the leaks after you get adjusted to the new mask. By checking the link on your machine it looks like a Respironics 560 auto. You can check that by turning it over after taking the water out and looking at the number on the bottom of the blower. Some of the links to the machines don't show up so you can just type it in the comments.
If at some point you want to post graphs. This link will help. It is 3 pages long so click on the next section at the bottom of each page. https://sleep.tnet.com/resources/sleepyhead/shorganize

Well boy am I slow to get stuff done. Finally got screenshots. Any thoughts on how I'm doing?

dwhla wrote:Well boy am I slow to get stuff done. Finally got screenshots. Any thoughts on how I'm doing?

Looking pretty darn good.

Couple of hints if you post screen shots again...no need to redo this one though.
Omit the snore and respiration rate graphs and make the leak graph larger. Snores are flagged on the events graph at the top and respiration rate graph is useless.
Leak graph is more important.

A word about the statistic called "time over red line threshold" on the left side of the report under all the statistics.
You are using a Respironics machine and SleepyHead defaults for ResMed machine large leak red line threshold. So the % of time above red line might tell you that your leaks were worse than they really are.
Any large leaks will be flagged on your Events graph at the very top...see LL...that's large leak. If you don't have any LL flags up there
and SleepyHead is telling you that you had some big leaks then the statistic % is incorrect.
You can fix it in SH....Preferences/CPAP tab...change the 24 L/min (that's the ResMed threshold) to something more in line with your mahine...like maybe 60 L/min (Respironics doesn't ever give us an exact number because it varies so much with pressure and mask used) or simply turn it off by removing the check mark. Your choice.

So if SH tells you that you had some bad leaks...go look at the events graph before going into panic mode.

Thank you Pugsy. I took your advice. I've attached the brand new stats w/ the two bottom charts cut off!

To be honest at this point I use the CPAP for the beginning of the night and then remove it during the night. I've been using an iPhone app called snorelab to hear how loud I'm snoring when the CPAP is off, and it's mostly sleeping like a baby. Very light snoring.

I'm beginning to think with my weight loss, maybe I don't need the CPAP anymore. The doc told me initially to lose weight which might fix the problem.

I assume that I need a new sleep study to confirm that I don't need it, but since it cost almost a grand last time, I want to spend that only when I'm pretty sure I'm all done, since I'm still losing weight.

Can you tell from these charts anything? Does it look like the CPAP is doing something significant? Or might I be OK?

dwhla wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 17, 2018 3:41 pm

Thank you Pugsy. I took your advice. I've attached the brand new stats w/ the two bottom charts cut off!

To be honest at this point I use the CPAP for the beginning of the night and then remove it during the night. I've been using an iPhone app called snorelab to hear how loud I'm snoring when the CPAP is off, and it's mostly sleeping like a baby. Very light snoring.

I'm beginning to think with my weight loss, maybe I don't need the CPAP anymore. The doc told me initially to lose weight which might fix the problem.

I assume that I need a new sleep study to confirm that I don't need it, but since it cost almost a grand last time, I want to spend that only when I'm pretty sure I'm all done, since I'm still losing weight.

Can you tell from these charts anything? Does it look like the CPAP is doing something significant? Or might I be OK?

Need a link to the new data

Your leaks are fine most of the time. I wouldn't give it a second thought. It was probably when you took your mask off or adjusted it, you got the high reading.

dreamstations are slow to respond, if you want to clean up a few of the H, you could try pressure min 8 and then try min 9

ajack wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 17, 2018 6:27 pm

Your leaks are fine most of the time. I wouldn't give it a second thought. It was probably when you took your mask off or adjusted it, you got the high reading.

dreamstations are slow to respond, if you want to clean up a few of the H, you could try pressure min 8 and then try min 9

You are either commenting on data from July, or I can't see the link to the new data.

Trying the attachment again. Now I see what happened. The file was too big.

I lost 50 lbs. recently, and just had a second sleep study. While my AHI has gone down a bit (from 29 to about 14), I'm still on cpap. The good news is that my AHI on my side has gone down to about 4. So if I can cut that in half with a dental appliance when I'm traveling, might be okay in those situations when cpap is more difficult, as long as I can be sure that I'm sleeping all night on my side. There are various ways to do that, so that's a thought, anyways.

Anyways, my point is that you can't "self-diagnose". Your cpap machine doesn't tell you what you need to know, it's not a diagnostic tool, it's a therapy tool. You really need a new sleep study to see what's going on when you're sleeping. If I do get a dental appliance, I'd get another sleep study using it to see where things stand.

Congrats!

I will keep working on the weight loss and when I'm down more I will do another study. Thanks.

Thanks, congratulations to you as well for losing weight. Not an easy thing to do, but it can be done if you have strong enough motivation.

Thanks!

And indeed!