Sleepy Head Question

[robz]

Sorry for the question, still a bit new.......What does flow limit tell us? Because I notice some nights the line is more tight and other nights its more expanded.....And the bottom graph, Time AT Pressure......what is that telling you.......

And Pressure Graph....I mean this is obvious....But, mine usually looks like an up and down graph.....Now I understand that it goes up as the machine is trying to anticipate needed pressure and then reduces pressure as things balance out......I guess my question is, if you had a graph that did not have has much up and downs, and a little more steady line, would that be a better sign of success with compliance of with machine and the machine pressures more dialed in? (Does this kind of make sense what I asked)

Thank you for any help provided....

[Pugsy]

Flow limitations are reductions/restrictions in the air flow or breathing that don't meet criteria for an Apnea Flag of some sort or a Hyponea flag.
They are important enough though that all machines who can auto adjust the pressures will try to prevent FLs from happening by increasing the pressure because they can grow up to be full blown apnea events or hyponeas.

Auto adjusting pressures...just means that the machine senses something it doesn't like and wants to increase the pressures to try to prevent it from either growing up to earn a flag or from happening again.
The somethings it doesn't like and will respond to....not just flagged OAs and hyponeas but also snores and flow limitations.
Snores and flow limitations are the warning signs that the airway is either trying to collapse or has already collapsed a bit but maybe not yet to the point of earning a flag.

I guess my question is, if you had a graph that did not have has much up and downs, and a little more steady line, would that be a better sign of success with compliance of with machine and the machine pressures more dialed in? (Does this kind of make sense what I asked)

Not necessarily going to mean much if there isn't much movement of the pressure line...it just means that for that night the machine didn't sense a lot going on that required much variation in pressure.
We don't sleep the same each night and sometimes sleeping position (on our backs especially) or even REM stage sleep can cause the pressure needs to vary during the night for some people and maybe not so much for others.
I have nights where my pressure line might not vary much at all from the minimum of 7...might see it hit 9 or 10 and that's it.
Then I have nights where my pressure might hit 16 for a period of time. For me this usually means REM sleep since I know that my OSA is worse in REM.

So a not much movement pressure line can mean for that night that the machine just didn't need to move much for whatever reason.

Compliance wouldn't be the term I would use in your question and I do think I understand it. Optimal therapy might be more of what I would use instead of compliance.

And....optimal therapy just means that the machine does its job preventing airway collapses and holding the airway open and if optimal therapy happens to show a pressure line with minimal movement that's wonderful but optimal therapy can also be when the pressure line moves all over the place as needed...like in my bad REM times. I have no way to predict when those bad REM times will happen so I can dial in a more restricted range in anticipation of needing 16 cm for maybe 30 minutes out of an entire 7 hour night.
It would mean that I had to use maybe the range of 15 to 18 all night long...and who in their right mind would want to use a minimum of 15 minimum all night long when 7 minimum gets the job done anyway, just so that the pressure line doesn't move much?
Not me for sure.

Ignore Time at Pressure...it's not complete and doesn't mean much. The author of SH started work on it as a general idea how much time was spent at what pressure and it's not a polished data point. It needs more work and the SH author isn't doing more work on anything related to SH at this time. Even it if was polished and perfect...still not all that useful.

[robz]

Thank you for the detailed reply Pugsy....