difference in ahi from a good night to a bad night

[jt1]

i'm just curious how much your ahi goes up on a bad sleep night? i know sometimes our bodies just have those nights that aren't very good. overall my sleep is definitely improving, but i had a solid week of sleep under .60 and thought everything was good as far as pressure and all, but the last week my ahi has been creeping up. 1.25,1.81,1.81,2.84,1.76, and last night the worse for awhile, a 3.10. i did bump minimum pressure last night 1.0cm to 13.0. it did pretty much remove all my snores according to sleepyhead and i had a dream! my best friend who passed away 12 yrs ago came to visit me in my dream, so aside from the ahi it was a great night sleep, and i woke feeling refreshed. and also wondering how close was the doc's setting that was prescribed to the setting you have now once you got dialed in?

[Julie]

I'm not sure what you're asking (if anything, vs just wanting to ruminate out loud). AHI goes up in response to something, but we can't always know for sure what if the rise is small and a one-off. Glad that you had a nice dream (it's great that there's somewhere to meet 'gone' people) but if you want to know why your AHI went up a little on one night, you're probably going to be the best judge of that yourself after all, given that you were there and know what might have happened (so many little things can make a diff. on one night, whether it's coffee at some point, a loud noise while asleep, temp change in the room, bedding getting wrapped around wrongly, etc. etc.

If it keeps going up with no reasonable explanation (there generally is something) start keeping your own (vs SH) log of little diffs that might contribute (including how you actually feel once up) and see if a picture appears.

[Sheriff Buford]

My sleep study report indicate a pressure of 14 cm/h2o and maybe a 15. I initially started out a 14, but bumped it up to 15. 15 seems to be my sweet spot. Don't discount how you feel. I would go with the "how you feel" over the numbers as long as the numbers are not really high.

Sheriff

[jt1]

[quote="Julie"]I'm not sure what you're asking (if anything, vs just wanting to ruminate out loud).



here was the two questions i asked in the very short thread i posted...............

1)"I'm just curious how much your AHI goes up on a bad sleep night"?

2)"How close was the Doc's setting that was prescribed to the setting you have now once you got dialed in"?

The first question was the first sentence, and the second question was the last sentence. Did that help???

[jt1]

My sleep study report indicate a pressure of 14 cm/h2o and maybe a 15. I initially started out a 14, but bumped it up to 15. 15 seems to be my sweet spot. Don't discount how you feel. I would go with the "how you feel" over the numbers as long as the numbers are not really high.

Sheriff

ok, thanks sheriff.

[Julie]

And I guess my answer to the first Q meant sometihng like "What constitutes a bad night" given that a relatively small rise in AHI could mean anything - not sure if it referred to the AHI or how you felt (you said you felt fine) or what - too vague. And again, the 'doctor' Q was open ended as half the docs only "prescribe" an open setting of 4-20 to begin with, which tells us nothing about what the real titration suggested or how an individual might respond, so it's hard to come to any meaningful conclusion. But others will give you their take on script-vs-results.

[Okie bipap]

The last 7 nights, my AHI was 0.85, 0.91, 0.91, 0.52, 0.26, 4.76, 1.50. The only difference in my days was I had as asthma attack on Thursday (4,76 AHI). I have not made any adjustments to what my doctor prescribed, which maxes out the machine (20 - 25 IPAP and 5 PS).

[Mudrock63]

I'll answer in reverse order. I was prescribed fixed 6.0, am presently using auto between 16.0 and 20.0. Probably need a Bipap.

Night before last I had my best AHI index night ever, and felt like crap all day yesterday. Had to answer the alarm and go to work. So that may have been I just didn't get to sleep long enough.

Last night my AHI spiked up to 8.6, but I feel pretty good this morning.

Strange. My wife says I am too obsessed with Sleepyhead.

[Drowsy Dancer]

I'd be careful about overinterpreting very small amounts of data. What's most important is the trendline.

There's not always a direct relationship between how you feel on any given night and what your numbers are. I sometimes feel awful after nights with "good" numbers and vice versa.

Because the sleep study is only one night, some titrations hit it better than others. Also, people's bodies change over time.

"To learn, observe."

[oncomingspork]

For me, a bad night usually means half-awake flopping around in the bed like a dying trout, which is arousals, and sometimes that corresponds to a higher number of hypopneas, but not always. My AHI was 1.9 last night, which is the best yet, even though I had a bad stomachache that kept waking me up. So IDK. I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

[Guest]

I'll answer in reverse order. I was prescribed fixed 6.0, am presently using auto between 16.0 and 20.0. Probably need a Bipap.

Night before last I had my best AHI index night ever, and felt like crap all day yesterday. Had to answer the alarm and go to work. So that may have been I just didn't get to sleep long enough.

Last night my AHI spiked up to 8.6, but I feel pretty good this morning.

Strange. My wife says I am too obsessed with Sleepyhead.

i also am obsessed with sleepyhead! anyways, the sleep lab doc recommended a straight pressure of 9.0, but im on auto 12-20. im only at 12 for a short while. i hit 20 a lot. im also wondering if i need a bi-pap. any idea on how you would know if you did need one?

[Mudrock63]

I'll answer in reverse order. I was prescribed fixed 6.0, am presently using auto between 16.0 and 20.0. Probably need a Bipap.

Night before last I had my best AHI index night ever, and felt like crap all day yesterday. Had to answer the alarm and go to work. So that may have been I just didn't get to sleep long enough.

Last night my AHI spiked up to 8.6, but I feel pretty good this morning.

Strange. My wife says I am too obsessed with Sleepyhead.

i also am obsessed with sleepyhead! anyways, the sleep lab doc recommended a straight pressure of 9.0, but im on auto 12-20. im only at 12 for a short while. i hit 20 a lot. im also wondering if i need a bi-pap. any idea on how you would know if you did need one?

My AHI last night was 8.43, and the machine was pegged at 20 for a large part of the night. How I found out I may need a Bipap was on this board. I started a thread, titled Two Months In, posted several Sleepyhead charts, and one of the knowledgeable folks on here suggested I may need one. None of the other knowledgeable people here disagreed with her assessment. So I brought it up at my last appointment with the ENT who is treating me. She concurred that to get the best results, I may need to switch to Bipap. She agreed, but also said an AHI below 6.0 was acceptable (eye roll).

The way I look at it is, yes, CPAP set in the APAP mode has helped me tremendously. BUT, I still need naps when I can get them. And my AHI seems to spike during REM sleep. Which we all need in order to be healthy, both mentally and physically. So, while I feel better, I am pretty sure my treatment is not optimized at this point. And that is my goal. I don't want to just feel somewhat better, I want to feel amazingly better.

The only monkey wrench in my plan was I got a horrible respiratory virus right after Christmas, completely with sinuses jammed shut and fever. That skewed my treatment numbers for two weeks. I am finally over that and my numbers are down somewhat, but still not acceptable. For two nights in a row, I have been in the 8-9.0 range on AHI. And the way I see it is being prodded awake 8-9 times an hours means I am NOT receiving optimal treatment.

So my plan is to give it a couple more days, and if I don't see improvement I am going to post a few more charts on my thread and confirm with the experts on there that they think I need a Bipap. If so, I will start the process with my ENT to go that route. I want to be absolutely sure I'm not being a neurotic drama queen about it, and trying to wring every ounce of treatment out of the present machine before I pull the trigger.