For the Technically, Analytically Inclined

[MaxDarkside]

Hi All,

I've started a blog to chronicle my adventures in figuring out how I can get the best treatment for my sleep apnea, improve my sleep quality and therefore my quality of life. I'm afraid that sleep apnea has damaged me some, mentally, I'm groggy a lot and cannot think as clearly and quickly as I used to. I want to figure out this thing called "Sleep Apnea", figure out what "I feel good" means, try to identify factors in my control that improves my "feel good", maximize my clarity of thought, how I feel and thus my quality of life.

I've called the blog "The Wired Apneic" for lack of a better name. "Wired" because I've got a variety of devices I connect to myself during the day and mostly at night and it suggests the technical nature of my adventure.
Link: http://wiredapneic.blogspot.com

I have discussed this with some of you and the best balance I think is to chronicle this in a combination of blog posting and posts to this forum, perhaps in this thread so I can give more detail on the blog while reducing "bandwidth" here, that is, excessive posting.

I mention it here because you all are involved in this malady and some of you are "technical" and "analytical" in nature like I am. I could use your suggestions, guidance and comments. I'm a many-decades professional in analyzing "stuff", but I also admit I don't know everything and you know more than I do in your areas of experience. So, please visit the blog and COMMENT! Those comments will be very useful to me, particularly because I'm now impaired and can easily miss things. Also, your comments can guide me about posting more information about what I did. "Gee, Max, how did you make that Zeo serial cable? Where did you get the parts?" could lead me to write a tutorial on that.

We all know what often happens to blogs, they start out with great intentions and often later fade due to other time demands, or achieving their goals, or lack of general interest. I hope this one does not meet a similar fate, but I'm giving it a go. I'm not on this full time, I do have a "day job", but that day job is directly related to the nature of what I will be doing and will involve using and improving software I use professionally.

This is about me, you see a lot of "I", "me" and "my" above, and thus may not apply to you, or everyone, but probably some of you. By your reading and commenting, I will get value, guidance and suggestions and maybe you will get some ideas and value too. Also, if I find something useful more generally perhaps I can bring some value to a broader audience and maybe I can help you too. As I read here some of the people's stories are very similar to mine.

Please join me, if you please: Link: http://wiredapneic.blogspot.com

[MaxDarkside]

I'm making some progress in my pet data-analytical project on how to improve my sleep, well, more importantly how I feel and perform during the next day. I've posted some updates to my new blog.


I now have the ResMed S9 AutoSet data gathered (post sleep) and it's together with the Zeo data gathered in real-time (cool) and the CMS50E Pulse/Ox data gathered post-sleep.
More Here: http://wiredapneic.blogspot.com/2012/01 ... -data.html


For others messing with data from devices, we found a boo-boo in the CMS50E *spOR files. Not only do you know there's a Y2K issue (2 digit year) but wooo... sometimes, once in a while, occasionally, if the planets are aligned right the date is off by one day. It might be related to when the record button is pushed. I don't know. We watch for it and fix it up in our code.
More Here: http://wiredapneic.blogspot.com/2012/01 ... oblem.html


In looking at SleepyHead charts a while back, I noted some major shifts in my AHI. When I first started xPAP I slept on my back and got poorer numbers, then I slept on my tummy and got quite good #'s. That was in a home at about 800 ft altitude. Right now I'm in an apartment at about 4,000 ft and don't have as good a bed. Oh, don't worry, I live in multiple places. My wife didn't throw me out . If you go look at the blog post, you will see that my AHI's have clearly jumped up. Numerous factors could play into that (altitude, disturbances, poorer bed, etc.) Kinda interesting is all.
More Here: http://wiredapneic.blogspot.com/2012/01 ... hifts.html

I'm now sorting out what factors I should track that might influence my sleep and coming up with nightly metrics about my sleep and my "feel good" and "personal performance". That's very important, so there will be much more coming on that.

Thanks.

[Starlette]

Hi Max.

I went to your blog and you confirmed something that I stumbled upon myself and no one on the forum has ever confirmed. That is, our environment does indeed affect our sleep, which then effect our AHIs. I remember one night, this past late fall, I hadn't started applying lotion on my whole body, just my back and arms because of the dry air. On morning I looked at my data and my AHIs were extremely high. Why? Because my ankles were dry and they would jerk/itch during the night (I could feel this while I slept). For you on the other hand, sleep quality was achieved sleeping on your side in a humidity controlled room. I knew there had to be a link to the quality of our sleep and external environment. I just knew, just didn't say anything. Thank you Max for confirming.

Like you, I've recently started a new approach at looking at myself and my sleep architecture. Also, doing double journaling seeing how my lifestyle affects my sleep. My hope is that in a couple of months (if even that), I will arrive at what I've always termed "sleep nirvana" and truly begin having a life for once in my life. I also call this driving in the front seat of my life rather than the back seat looking out in the midst of brain fog, sleepiness, etc.

Thank you for sharing your life and for being you.

Starlette

[MaxDarkside]

I went to your blog and you confirmed something that I stumbled upon myself and no one on the forum has ever confirmed. That is, our environment does indeed affect our sleep, which then effect our AHIs.

Indeed. I wonder how best to quantify some of these factors. That's what my head is spinning on at the moment. Sleeping temperature and humidity maybe would be a start, or more qualitative judgements ("On a scale of 1-10, how _blank_ is _blank_").

Thank you for sharing your life and for being you.

Awwww, thank you. I am learning and hope to share some things that people might find useful as I journey on my noble quest for the Holy Grail (sound of coconuts halves being clapped together as I ride towards the horizon on my trusty steed) You'd have to be a Monty Python fan to understand that

[Kilgore Trout]

Added to Google Reader

[Starlette]

How were you able to add to Google Reader?

[Slartybartfast]

I bookmarked your blog. Great start to an interesting synthesis of data. The ability to see what's happening while we're asleep is a paradigm shift in how we handle our treatment for sleep apnea. While a number of the professionals out there pooh-pooh the idea of patients taking an active part in their treatment, the trend is clear that more information is better. And as more and better analytical tools become available (CMS-50E, ResScan, SleepyHead and [perhaps] the Zeo, or some device that can gather EEG activity), the need for a platform to integrate the data and to correctly interpret it becomes more important. It looks to me like that's where you're headed.

Best of luck in your endeavor.

Slartybartfast
(and if you think Monty Python was the bees' knees, you really need to read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a trilogy in 5 books, last I counted)

[MaxDarkside]

I bookmarked your blog. Great start to an interesting synthesis of data. The ability to see what's happening while we're asleep is a paradigm shift in how we handle our treatment for sleep apnea. While a number of the professionals out there pooh-pooh the idea of patients taking an active part in their treatment, the trend is clear that more information is better. And as more and better analytical tools become available (CMS-50E, ResScan, SleepyHead and [perhaps] the Zeo, or some device that can gather EEG activity), the need for a platform to integrate the data and to correctly interpret it becomes more important. It looks to me like that's where you're headed.

Thanks. Taking an active part, or if not that, merely being aware and understanding why, is very important. There is no better advocate of your health, no person in more control than you. The better (correctly) informed we are, success comes much easier.

(and if you think Monty Python was the bees' knees, you really need to read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a trilogy in 5 books, last I counted)

Well, judging by your profile pic, you're a lumberjack and you're OK. (LOL... if you know that Monty Python skit)

[deltadave]

In the data you posted:



What means "MV"? Is that the gamma channel?

Also, how would you rate your quality of sleep for that night? "IMHO", this looks like the worst one yet.

[MaxDarkside]

In the data you posted:
What means "MV"? Is that the gamma channel?

I do believe it is "Minute Volume" from the ResMed S9 AutoSet

Also, how would you rate your quality of sleep for that night? "IMHO", this looks like the worst one yet.

It was OK-good, but this wasn't intended to be used for such a judgment, but to show some data from different sources together in the same chart.
Thanks!

[MaxDarkside]

I had a strange night last night. I chronicled it on the blog. I still don't feel quite right today.
http://wiredapneic.blogspot.com/2012/01 ... night.html

[HoseCrusher]

If the green line represents your pulse rate, it would appear that at #4 you basically work up. During a major arousal like that, you can be expected to toss and turn a little. During this movement it is very probable that your oximeter shifted a little, and the desaturation is an artifact. I can't see how fast the desaturation occurred, but you can expand the scale and check that for yourself.

Your airflow data doesn't know the difference between when you are awake, or nearly awake, and when you are sleeping. I notice that when I wake up and take a few moments to think about the upcoming day, I tend to score a whole bunch of events. I think this is the difference between normal wakeful breathing and sleep breathing.

It is possible that you feel like crap because you basically work up in the middle of the night and it took some time to fall back to sleep. This robbed you of restful continuous sleep.

[MaxDarkside]

It could be that I awoke, or came to some arousal during #4, but the brain waves don't appear to indicate fully "Awake", tho I am yet learning to interpret them. In zooming in on the desat, the spO2 appears to progressively drop during an event, then jump back up each time the event is over and I appear to gasp, judging by the high speed reading of the mask flow, so I'm guessing it isn't an artifact. I do seem to desat into the mid-80s commonly during these clusters of apnea events. Scoring by eye, not ResMed, I can see I had a series of about 20 apnea events from 3:04 AM to 3:23 AM. Here's the zoom on the O2...



Today, I feel not so much like crap, but waves of alertness and grogginess and body aches. For about 5 mins multiple times per hour, I get really groggy, and in between I have moments of being really perky and alert, ready to conquer the world, then I get very groggy, cycling heavy. Maybe that's a symptom of mild narcolepsy, I don't know, the jury is out on that yet.

Edit: I'll be soon scoring arousal events based on a number of factors across the ResMed and Pulse-Ox data, something the Zeo cannot do.

[HoseCrusher]

If it is not too much to ask... could you display the pulse data for the same time period?

[MaxDarkside]

If it is not too much to ask... could you display the pulse data for the same time period?

No problem! Easy...



You can see that when I have these clusters and I de-sat, and re-sat, it is accompanied by a jolt in heart rate, trying to get blood (O2) flowing and likely an arousal, tho that latter guess I have not confirmed in the other data.