Weird breathing patterns. Is this a problem?

[Danvers]

I'm having some weird breathing at times at night I've noticed on my OSCAR charts , and I'm not sure if I should be worried or not. At times it looks sort of like Cheyne Stokes breathing to my untrained eye, but sometimes it doesn't. They usually begin with an OA. I'll usually have 2-3 of these a night that are about 5-10 minuntes each, but sometimes like last night, I have a long one that lasts 30 minutes. Lots of times I won't have have any events during these episodes. Sometimes I will have an OA or a hypopnea during the episodes. Here is last night's OSCAR

Screenshot (2).png (138.25 KiB) Viewed 351 times

Here is a close up of the flag in the weird area

Screenshot (10).png (17 KiB) Viewed 351 times

This is from another night that's pretty representative of how they look:

Screenshot (4).png (14.11 KiB) Viewed 351 times

Is this normal? I've had two physicals since I started CPAP and I don't have any cardiac issues or symptoms. Are there any setting changes I should make or things I can do to make these go away?
Thanks for your help!

[Danvers]

Oh, I forgot to say that I feel rested and think I'm doing well with CPAP. So there is no problem on that front.

Here is one more episode that was short but had lots of flags.

Screenshot (7).png (14.19 KiB) Viewed 350 times

Thanks in advance for your advice!

[Pugsy]

All that weird breathing after that first OA....that's irregular awake/arousal breathing. You may or may not remember the awakening and you might have been half awake/half asleep. It's nothing to worry about.

Any flags in the middle of awake/arousal breathing aren't real asleep events and they can be ignored. The machine doesn't know if you are asleep or not. It only measures air flow and our awake/arousal related breathing is highly irregular when compared to asleep breathing but the machine doesn't know the difference so it responds and flags apnea events that aren't real events. Think of them as sort of false positives.

To help you learn to identify asleep breathing flow rate and awake breathing flow rate watch the videos here.
While the main focus is on false positive central (clear airway) apneas....false positives can happen with OAs and hyponeas as well. It's not limited to centrals.
http://freecpapadvice.com/sleepyhead-free-software

If your machine doesn't flag PB/CSR breathing....it didn't happen...so if you don't see green flagged areas...for sure it's not CSR or PB.
It's most likely half awake or awake breathing irregularities.

Asleep breathing is very predictable and smooth and rhythmic.... The asleep breathing is circled in red.....everything else is arousal or awake related and not real and can be ignored.

[Danvers]

Thank you so much, Pugsy.
I can definitely recognize my sleeping, regular breathing and how it looks different when I'm awake before I drift off to sleep or as I go back to sleep after using the bathroom, but I didn't realize these weird areas were also when I was not fully asleep, too. They just looked sort of patterned and regular in a different way from the sleeping breathing to me so I was worried they were something strange. I also had no idea that my machine or OSCAR would flag Cheyne Stokes or periodic breathing. I've never seen anything like that on my OSCAR data so it's obviously never been flagged for me. Whew! I feel so much better! Thank you for your help!

[Pugsy]

Your machine will flag CSR if it thinks you have it.
It can sometimes flag it and it is just plain Periodic Breathing but not CSR. CSR is just one form of periodic breathing but it isn't the only form.

It's quite obvious and easy to spot when the machine flags it....big green background during the time it thinks PB happened.

Also it's fairly easy to see that the breathing is more sleep looking as in rhythmic and regular and doesn't jump around helter skelter.

Flagged PB....not CSR and no where near looking like CSR



Real CSR....note the obvious difference in pattern but it is still rhythmic and not all over the place.