Apnea or Afib

[joshdog]

I had an attack last night for about 15 minutes rapid shallow breathing and it seemed like the CPAP did not increase the air pressure. Seemed like I was not getting enough air. After about 30 minutes my breathing went back to normal. I am not sure if it was a Atrial Fibrillation attack or sleep apnea. I looked at the sleepy head stuff but could not tell. What would it look like on sleepy head?

Thanks
Joshdog

[jimbud]

I had an attack last night for about 15 minutes rapid shallow breathing and it seemed like the CPAP did not increase the air pressure. Seemed like I was not getting enough air. After about 30 minutes my breathing went back to normal. I am not sure if it was a Atrial Fibrillation attack or sleep apnea. I looked at the sleepy head stuff but could not tell. What would it look like on sleepy head?

Thanks
Joshdog

AFIB is your heart beat. Sleepyhead/Oscar is breathing.
It will not show up very clearly on graphs.
Many of us breath at different rates at different time all night.
It will be difficult to pick out your attack unless you can pinpoint the time frame.
Even then it probably will not show much difference.

That has been my experience.
Your results may vary.

JPB

[Dog Slobber]

I had an attack last night for about 15 minutes rapid shallow breathing and it seemed like the CPAP did not increase the air pressure. Seemed like I was not getting enough air. After about 30 minutes my breathing went back to normal. I am not sure if it was a Atrial Fibrillation attack or sleep apnea. I looked at the sleepy head stuff but could not tell. What would it look like on sleepy head?

Thanks
Joshdog

Pressure won't increase because you are shallow breathing, and we are not very good at judging pressure by feel alone. Especially when we are new.

Instead of asking us to try to describe what various conditions look like on SleepyHead/OSCAR, it much better to post graphs so people can see for themselves.

[JDS74]

Take a look at the breathing data in the OSCAR graph to see if you can identify the time frame. Then look at the other graphs to see what might be going on.
If this is a repeating issue, perhaps getting an OSCAR compatible recording pulse oximeter so that additional data is collected.

[Miss Emerita]

Joshdog, I couldn't tell from your post whether you've already been diagnosed with Afib. If you have, I'd suggest you talk with your cardiologist about your night-time experience.

I also couldn't tell if you were awake during the episode. If you were, I wonder whether you might have been having a bit of a panic attack. With all the weirdness of the machine and mask, that would not be unusual.

[joshdog]

First THANKS to ALL who have replied.

I had severe sleep apnea over 60 events per hour, as tested at two different hospital sleep studies a couple of years apart. Yes I do have AFIB along with bad environmental allergies. CPAP with FFMs got it down to between 10 and 30 events per hour. Using nasal masks have even gotten the events down to between 3 and 15.
The allergies cause my sinuses to plug up, making CPAP use a difficult time.
As to the original post I woke up between 1:00 and 1:30 having very rapid shallow breathing. I have been on CPAP for almost two years various FFM and just a few months now on nasal masks. I wonder if the doctors setup of the CPAP machine is correct. It does show nasal mask selected. I wonder if nasal masks need more pressure than FFMs. With the N20 or N30i mask on it seems more difficult to breath than with the mask off, except when my noise is almost plugged off. If this was a panic attack it is a first and hopefully last for me.
I am not good at some computer stuff so I haven't tried putting pictures on posts.

Joshdog

[zonker]

I am not good at some computer stuff so I haven't tried putting pictures on posts.

Joshdog

do you know how to take a screenshot of your oscar graphs?

[Cardsfan]

Get a Kardia monitor and it will record your heartbeat and tell you if you are in AFIB.
www.alivecor.com