ty snoredog

followed your directions no shut off last nite #s this morning areAHI=8.1 Leak=39.4 are these # good bad or average ty

Anonymous wrote:followed your directions no shut off last nite #s this morning areAHI=8.1 Leak=39.4 are these # good bad or average ty

don't know if you are asking me about those numbers or what kind of machine you have, but...

AHI=8.1 is still a bit high for my liking. If you are on a CPAP machine it could use an increase by about 1 cm. If an autopap, you could increase the Minimum pressure by 1 cm. That should lower that score.

Leak=39.4, if you are obtaining that from the machine LCD display, that leak rate may be good or it may be bad, it all depends on what pressure you are at, what type of mask you are using. That 39L/m (Liters per minute) is the total leak rate. So if you have the papers that came with your mask you look on the sheet with the flow chart, you find your CPAP pressure then look at the legend for the flow rate, it will tell you HOW MUCH of that 39L/m should be.

For example: if your 90% or CPAP pressure =9.0cm and you look on the chart and it says 28-32L/m flow at that pressure, then if you had ZERO leak, you would be at 32L/m maximum. So if you take what the LCD displays shows for leak and subtract your "masks" intentional flow rate (rate of exhaust that intentionally leaks) that will tell you exactly how much leak you are having.

So it is:

39L/m reported by the machine
32L/m from the flow chart that comes with the mask,

it would be:

39
-32
------
7 L/m of "external" leak (leak from say mask cushion and your skin), so that is not bad at all.

So you need to find the flow chart for your mask and confirm the flow rate at your given pressure, if you cannot find that assume it is in the 28 to 32L/m range.

When your external leak gets over about >16L/m you should start being concerned about controlling it. My opinion any external leak below 16L/m is ideal, so you could be at 48L/m shown on the machine which is high but it still shouldn't be enough to impact the ability of the machine to respond. For Remstars, 75L/m is the magic number where it impacts the ability of the machine to respond and it will begin lowering pressure to eliminate the leak.