Help interpreting graphs....

Hello lovely people.

So, I saw the DME 3 weeks ago. She tried to fob me off with an Escape, but thanks to you I knew that wasn't going to happen I asked her how she would know it was working, and she said 'we'll ask you', to which I pointed out someone on 3 different meds for mental illness, 2 of them at the max dose I probably wasn't reliable!

Anyway, I'm still waking up every night about every 2.5 hours. It's better than the 45 minute I was getting before and I do feel better, but I'd really, really, really like to sleep through the night. I've noticed that the ahi graph always looks like a castle just before I wake up (on each of these graphs, when it goes to 0, I was awake), but I'm not sure exactly what the graph means. I'm not sure how the average over an hour can increase without it being an hourly measurement. I'm not good at math!

Please could you share any thoughts you have, in order to help me be more knowledgable when I see the sleep doctor in 2 weeks.

Thank you so much

When you post your detailed graphs it would help a lot if you would include the entire daily detailed report and not just a snippet. The AHI graph is of less importance than the overall picture and it can sometimes give an impression that things are worse than they are since it is a per hour graph. Of more importance are these graphs..
Events
Flow rate
Leak

Pressure graph isn't all that important when using fixed pressures like your Elite delivers.
and the graphs on the left side that show AHI and the breakdown into event categories.

If your events are mainly either Obstructive apneas or hyponeas then in general the 2 most common causes for an increase in events are either supine sleeping or REM stage sleep or maybe a little of both.

Right now just looking at the snippet we have no idea what type of event is even being flagged.

I can certainly post the rest. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!

I think she means like this - except click on the EVENTS tab first so we can see the duration time.

AHI bar graph on the left side? Where the pie chart is? Need that too. Don't need Mask pressure graph as it just mimics the pressure graph. So that your images look sort of like this one below?

Your OAs look sort of like they could be REM stage sleep events...sort of because normally we don't see REM until about 90 minutes into sleep so the first ones would be a little early for REM.
Might also be related to supine sleeping. Do you ever sleep on your back that you are aware of?

Ah! I'm sorry - I'll get it right in a minute. I don't *think* I sleep on my back - I go to sleep and wake up on my side. During my sleep study, the lady told me that I didn't go back to sleep when I was on my back, which I think means I probably don't. I usually wake up dreaming, although once or twice I haven't. That might suggest you're right, since you only dream in REM right?

You can actually dream in any stage of sleep but REM is where we seem to do the most dreaming.

If you rarely sleep on your back then the slight increase in events you see could very well be REM stage sleep.
Look here at the hypnogram to see when REM stage sleep normally occurs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep
image of graph is on the right side after you scroll down a bit.

It's common. My OSA is documented much worse in REM stage sleep.

Sometimes those REM events just need a little more pressure to keep them from materializing. Your clusters aren't horrible though. You are already at a higher pressure and I don't know if other than maybe explaining what you are seeing if you want to do anything about them or not. You are using EPR at 3?? Reducing EPR to 2 might reduce those OA clusters....if you want to try to reduce them. Not sure if you really need to reduce them though...if you are sleeping well and feeling rested.

Pugsy wrote:Not sure if you really need to reduce them though...if you are sleeping well and feeling rested.

Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I'm glad they don't look like anything to worry about. Thank you for reassuring me!