Last time you've seen any sleep professional? (poll)

Muse-Inc wrote:

Lizistired wrote:Back on the original topic, I am trying to compile questions for my sleep doc follow up.
The only thing I can come up with is "What about my O2 dropping even without flagged apneas?" Which involves my O2 monitoring. My AHI is <1...If my O2 is dropping I would assume it is lung function. It occurs during apneas <10 seconds in duration...

Since switching to an S9 Autoset (from my S8) my AHI is consistenly under 0.5, often 0, with about half of the events I do have reported as clear airway events. Now, even with that excellent AHI, my pulse-ox shows I occasionally desat from baseline at the moment (97 --> 90 or 95-->87 for example) and, rarely, even lower; however, the desat never lasts longer than 15-18 secs. So far, I'm not concerned with them because there is absolutely no simultaneous increase in my pulse nor do I wake up (that I'm aware of) which makes me think my hyper-sensitive brain is not sending panic signals with these desaturations. I believe these are likely caused by the much higher stress I've felt lately as they are a recent phenomena, so I'm careful to practice my stress mgmt techniques, try to get more sleep (mine's not great right now as I'm having issues falling asleep and waking about 4-5AM & having trouble falling asleep again), and avoiding/reducing exposure to the known stressors in my life.

Things I'd figure out first: Is your pulse rising in response to the desats? Are they common or rare? Did they start or are they associated with anything in your waking life, change in diet/routine/drugs/supplements? Do you wake up following them? Remember a certain number of centrals are considered normal.

Lizistired wrote:Back on the original topic, I am trying to compile questions for my sleep doc follow up.
The only thing I can come up with is "What about my O2 dropping even without flagged apneas?" Which involves my O2 monitoring.
My AHI is <1 so I just don't see the point in going to my follow up. Am I missing something. I got the help I needed here.
If my O2 is dropping I would assume it is lung function. It occurs during apneas <10 seconds in duration. Just guessing that my sleep doc isn't going to be of much help. Might as well talk to my PCP.
Thoughts?
Opinions?

Gazhacks wrote:

sandman19 wrote:I've seen my sleep specialist twice in two months. A vast majority of people on CPAP that I talk with have no interest whatsoever to learn more about their disease, their machines or their data.

maybe true over the water but here we are NOT allowed to see our data, I even took my hospital to the Houses of Parliment to fight for my right to check my settings and data on my machine and still they wont help. You should count yourselves very lucky to be allowed just to download your data and browse over it, I would give a week off my mask for the privalige.

Therapist wrote:See! There we go again. "Most patients have no interest in data."

Indeed most patients do not have an interest in data. This is the reason that DMEs typically supply only "bricks". It is ridiculous to campaign for the more expense machines when most of the market has no interest.

Many of you in this forum are out of touch with reality.

chunkyfrog wrote:What a wonderful line!
Quote:
"...the folks at this Forum are not your average CPAP users. But they are what all CPAPers should be."

I will be using this line to get folks to check out this site.

ChicagoGranny wrote:

Muse-Inc wrote:

Lizistired wrote:Back on the original topic, I am trying to compile questions for my sleep doc follow up.
The only thing I can come up with is "What about my O2 dropping even without flagged apneas?" Which involves my O2 monitoring. My AHI is <1...If my O2 is dropping I would assume it is lung function. It occurs during apneas <10 seconds in duration...

Since switching to an S9 Autoset (from my S8) my AHI is consistenly under 0.5, often 0, with about half of the events I do have reported as clear airway events. Now, even with that excellent AHI, my pulse-ox shows I occasionally desat from baseline at the moment (97 --> 90 or 95-->87 for example) and, rarely, even lower; however, the desat never lasts longer than 15-18 secs. So far, I'm not concerned with them because there is absolutely no simultaneous increase in my pulse nor do I wake up (that I'm aware of) which makes me think my hyper-sensitive brain is not sending panic signals with these desaturations. I believe these are likely caused by the much higher stress I've felt lately as they are a recent phenomena, so I'm careful to practice my stress mgmt techniques, try to get more sleep (mine's not great right now as I'm having issues falling asleep and waking about 4-5AM & having trouble falling asleep again), and avoiding/reducing exposure to the known stressors in my life.

Things I'd figure out first: Is your pulse rising in response to the desats? Are they common or rare? Did they start or are they associated with anything in your waking life, change in diet/routine/drugs/supplements? Do you wake up following them? Remember a certain number of centrals are considered normal.

I have to turn off the alarm on my POX at night. I may be cruising along at ~93% SPO2. But if I move, the effort quickly drops my SPO2 below 90% and it alarms. Maybe you are moving?



Regarding your desats, could they be false readings? My sleep doc said I had them and should ignore them. She had a term for them that I forget. Maybe residuals? Sorry it did not seem important so I do not remember much of the discussion.

refchef wrote:I'd love to actually KNOW my data!! My data has not been tracked since my initial sleep study 4 or 5 years ago. My insurance won't pay for a machine that uses a card, so I'm stuck in a pit of ignorance. I don't think they'll even pay for another sleep study.

I guess I'm doing OK. I don't have headaches like I did before I started therapy. And I'm not dead yet.

PST wrote:It's been a couple of years for me since I've seen a sleep professional, but I called today to make an appointment with my sleep doctor, and I was given a choice of times on Thursday. Do I really want a doctor who is so little in demand that he can see me on less than 48 hours notice? It reminds me of the Groucho Marx joke about not wanting to belong to any club that would have him as a member.