Asking a huge favour!

[palerider]

Totally- I'd love my AHI to be in the 0.somethings, but I know when it was it can't be a true reflection on my actual AHI- I had to consume a lot of caffeine yesterday!! And through the night I was drinking water whenever I woke up - mouth being mega dry.

the AHI isn't a measure of how rested you were, all it measures is how much breathing problems probably disturbed your rest.

it's not everything.

[reolhlains]

the leaks have to be ridiculously huge for the machine not to be able to detect an apnea. I'd guess well over 150lpm on your machine. and yours aren't, in fact, yours are suspiciously low.

I didn't realise that - thanks Something else must have been going on with it - my wife mentioned changing the nose part last night caused it to be "much quieter" - dunno what was going on. I have noticed that every single night since I got the machine in October, DreamMapper reckons my mask was fitting 100% - never anything less. I might not have had it on tight enough - that's the other thing. Working well last night, my nose was a little sore this morning (which I will take any day over being tired!!!).

Anyway - I feel amazing today - and hope that it's back on track

[palerider]

DreamMapper reckons my mask was fitting 100%

dreammapper is useless.

look at sleepyhead leak info to get a better idea.

[D.H.]

Since you're reporting a dry mouth and drinking lots of water, then yes, you probably do have an issue with mouth breathing. I'm not sure if that can cause an inaccurate AHI to register.

[robysue]

You think that your AHI dropped because you started to mouth breathe???????

I think perhaps more a question of trying to troubleshoot what's going on. It seems logical to me that if the pressure is escaping, the machine won't pick up events and AHI will seem low, whereas in reality it's much higher. Do you think mouth breathing would increase CPAP machine reported AHI rather than decrease it?

Reolhlains, your leak line on the one bit of data you posted doesn't indicate any significant mouth breathing issues.

Large leaks ---and yours are NOT large--- can cause the machine to have trouble reading your breathing well enough to accurately score events. As to whether it's more likely to score events that aren't there or more likely to miss events that are is not an easy question to answer.

Obviously I want a low AHI, but I know whether the machine managed to do it's job as soon as I wake up. Yesterday, after the photo I posted, I felt awful- exactly like pre-cpap days. I know the AHI of 0.5 can't be right.

There's far more to getting a genuinely good night's sleep than getting the AHI nice and low. But not everything that causes a bad night's sleep is rooted in OSA/CPAP.

Do you think you're doing a lot of tossing and turning at night? Do you have trouble getting to sleep? Do you have a lot of middle of the night wakes?

[reolhlains]

Do you think you're doing a lot of tossing and turning at night? Do you have trouble getting to sleep? Do you have a lot of middle of the night wakes?

Thanks Roby (and LS) - sounds like it isn't mouth breathing that's causing my issue.

I fall asleep very quickly (less than 10 mins) but, yea, I do wake up quite a lot. Occasionally I'll do 5 hours continuous sleep - but more usually 3ish. I don't often have an issue getting back to sleep when I wake up.

Maybe I go back to playing about with the pressure settings?

[reolhlains]

Bit of an update - the night where I woke up feeling great at the start of the week (and had a higher AHI) seems to have been a one off
I woke up this morning feeling pretty awful going to work (currently on the train and want to sleep!) - my AHI was 0.4 last night.
I know AHI isn't everything etc. etc. but, for me, there seems to be a coloration between feeling great when it sits at 1.somthing and feeling rubbish when it's at low 0.somethings. I can actually predict what it's going to be when I wake up, pretty accurately!
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to try. I know that my lips have been slightly open when I've woken up - so last night taped them shut to the point that no air was getting out - so it's probably not being caused by that (I think!). I will order a replacement nose part for the mask (no idea what the technical term is!) in the correct size and see what that does. My pressure range is still set at 11 - 13 (and 90% was 12, so maybe that's about right?).
Thanks all!!! (ps - I won't take rude responses personally, I find some of them mildly amusing!).

[Pugsy]

How many wake ups last night do you remember?

[reolhlains]

How many wake ups last night do you remember?

I remember one - after 3.9 hours I think.

[Pugsy]

And how many hours of sleep did you get last night?

Do you take any medications of any kind? If so, what?

[reolhlains]

And how many hours of sleep did you get last night?

Do you take any medications of any kind? If so, what?

Total usage per dream mapper last night was 7 hours 16 mins, so knock off a little for getting to sleep (and back to sleep the time I remember waking up), so about 7. I don't take any meds.

[Pugsy]

If wake ups are minimal and you got good solid hours of sleep and you don't take any medications that could maybe be blamed on feeling like crap during the day...then I don't know what to offer.

Maybe consider a fixed pressure on the chance that the slight pressure variations (you can't be having much variation with settings of 11 minimum and 13 maximum) you are having are disturbing your sleep at some level. Some people report they sleep better with fixed pressures.

Sorry, I am out of ideas relating to cpap stuff.

Maybe next time you feel one of the "good" days you can take a closer look at things to see what might be different.
I know that for me it was something as simple as 45 minutes more sleep on average.
I feel a whole lot better with 7 1/2 to 8 hours of sleep than I do with 6 1/2 to 7 hours of sleep.

[reolhlains]

Thanks Pugs - I really appreciate your help

I will do - and I'll take a sleepy head dump to see if there is anything different jumping out.

[D.H.]

Here's a new idea. I was a little baffled by the idea of feeling worse with a lower AHI.

However, is it possible that even though the machine is on and you are tethered to it, you're not really sleeping a lot of the time? Being awake (or in a less deep sleep) could explain a lower AHI and also explain feeling rotten!

[reolhlains]

However, is it possible that even though the machine is on and you are tethered to it, you're not really sleeping a lot of the time? Being awake (or in a less deep sleep) could explain a lower AHI and also explain feeling rotten!

Hey D.H. - possibly, I was certainly at least sort of sleeping (as I don't remember anything past about 5 minutes of being in bed) but, yea, I am wondering if I'm maybe not getting into the right kinda sleep for long enough.