Help With CMS50E

Hi All,
I am attempting a self diagnosis of sleep apnea using a CMS50E I just bought. It was suggested to me that I try using a PO to see if I had obvious issues with SpO2 and pulse at night. I purchased the CMS50E after reading many reviews online that this was a low cost alternative that worked with SleepyHead.

So I have used it several nights and am a bit confused by the data and the SleepyHead software. I am using a Mac with OS X 10.10 and SleepyHead. I can import data into SleepyHead and also installed the SpO2 and SpO2 Review (v1.2) software in a Windows 10 using Parallels. Those work fine.

My first question though is very basic. Should I be seeing drops in my SpO2 as regularly and dramatic as the chart from SleepyHead shows. This simply can't be correct, right? The pulse looks right, but the SpO2 has these "drop outs" all night long, beginning with the recording and continuing throughout the night every few minutes. I suspect something is wrong with the PO, or I am not using it correctly. I get the same graph in SleepyHead or SpO2 Review. I have tried recording values sitting very still, awake, in a chair, and observe the same behavior. Ideas? Previous experience with this issue? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

PulseWidth wrote:Hi All,
I am attempting a self diagnosis of sleep apnea using a CMS50E I just bought. It was suggested to me that I try using a PO to see if I had obvious issues with SpO2 and pulse at night. I purchased the CMS50E after reading many reviews online that this was a low cost alternative that worked with SleepyHead.

So I have used it several nights and am a bit confused by the data and the SleepyHead software. I am using a Mac with OS X 10.10 and SleepyHead. I can import data into SleepyHead and also installed the SpO2 and SpO2 Review (v1.2) software in a Windows 10 using Parallels. Those work fine.

My first question though is very basic. Should I be seeing drops in my SpO2 as regularly and dramatic as the chart from SleepyHead shows. This simply can't be correct, right? The pulse looks right, but the SpO2 has these "drop outs" all night long, beginning with the recording and continuing throughout the night every few minutes. I suspect something is wrong with the PO, or I am not using it correctly. I get the same graph in SleepyHead or SpO2 Review. I have tried recording values sitting very still, awake, in a chair, and observe the same behavior. Ideas? Previous experience with this issue? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

O2 drop is only one item that may cause sleep apnea....you need a real sleep study either in a lab or at home to diagnose it.

The sudden drops to 40 are glitches in the data. Compare the reading with the included software, you may be seeing a bug in sleepyhead.

Thanks. I get the same readings in the included software unfortunately.

PulseWidth wrote:Thanks. I get the same readings in the included software unfortunately.

I'd suspect a defective device, or you're moving around a lot... Movement can cause atifacts in the data.

That looks pretty normal. Even a very small finger movement will cause the unit to misread. If you have some medical tape, try securing it to your finger.

LoBattery wrote:That looks pretty normal. Even a very small finger movement will cause the unit to misread. If you have some medical tape, try securing it to your finger.

Movement artifacts aren't usually that regular, but it's possible.

I thought it might be movement artifacts, but this seemed pretty severe. And, as I said, I sat perfectly still with it on and still registered all of these dips. I have seen lots of graphs online that looks more regular with small variations but none of these "drop-outs". I think I have a defective unit.

Thanks
Albion

PulseWidth wrote:I thought it might be movement artifacts, but this seemed pretty severe. And, as I said, I sat perfectly still with it on and still registered all of these dips. I have seen lots of graphs online that looks more regular with small variations but none of these "drop-outs". I think I have a defective unit.

Thanks
Albion

if you can sit with it still, watching the display, and it's not jumping between 40 and 100, but the data is, then yes, you have a defective unit.

PulseWidth wrote:Hi All,
I am attempting a self diagnosis of sleep apnea using a CMS50E I just bought. It was suggested to me that I try using a PO to see if I had obvious issues with SpO2 and pulse at night. I purchased the CMS50E after reading many reviews online that this was a low cost alternative that worked with SleepyHead....

Welcome. So sorry you had to join us.

Zoom in closer on some of your downward spikes on SpO2. Zoom down to where 1 minute covers the width of the graph. SpO2 doesn't drop that dramatically very quickly. It would take 30 seconds or more. You may also see some gray areas in the graph indicating missing data.

However, even without the zoomed in pic, I can tell you those are data glitches where the sensor isn't getting a reading.