How to make sense of this data

[dbebz]

Hi everyone.

I have some questions about my CPAP data with regards to central apneas.

The last few days I’ve been working really late so I haven’t been maintaining a proper sleep schedule (mostly by my own choice unfortunately). I ended up going to bed last night really late and stayed on my phone in bed. This resulted in me barely being tired at all and having trouble falling/staying asleep.

Last night, I first only accumulated not even 4 hours. It basically was hard to stay asleep so I would put it on, wear it for like 30-40 mins, then take it off etc. I did not fall asleep immediately but instead tossed and turned and felt like I was in and out of sleep.

Every time after I woke up from these periods, I checked the machine and my central apnea index was significantly higher. I would check the machine and my AHI was about 8, and about 7 of these centrals. I then put the machine back on immediately and managed to sleep a solid hour and 10 minutes (rather than just tossing in and out of consciousness for 30) and the central apnea index dropped to 5.2 immediately after this. Again I tossed and turned once more and final AHI was 7.8 with 6.7 of these centrals.

Usually, even on a ‘bad’ night I would fall asleep with the machine and sleep at least 3 hours with it on, then maybe wake up once and sleep another 4 hours. Or better yet, sleep a solid 5-7 hours straight uninterrupted. When this occurs, my AHI has been on average 3.5 and my central apnea index about 2.4. I’ve been told from sleep studies that it appears I have ‘a bunch’ of centrals usually around sleep wake transition but haven’t gotten official final results from latest PSG.

Should I be concerned? Or can I chalk this up to my shitty sleep habits last night causing me to repeatedly awake and sleep, with the low usage inflating the centrals?

[Okie bipap]

It sounds like you have nothing to worry about other than crappy sleep. It is very common for a person to have a few central apneas during the transition period between awake and sleep as well as when transitioning from being asleep to being awake. The more you obsess over them, the worse they will get. The biggest thing is to get to sleep and stay asleep. Your machine does not know if you are asleep or not. It is programmed to expect normal breathing patterns of a person sleeping. Constantly transitioning from one state to the other confuses the machine and it often records uneven breathing as central apneas.

[dbebz]

Thanks for the reply. I only recently learned about the ‘essentials’ function on the device so was playing around with it to see more detailed information.

What’s probably happening is that as I just fall asleep or awake I’m having a cluster of them, then maybe my breathing stabilizes shortly after and I continue sleep.

I was already having issues falling asleep so when I briefly nodded off and opened the machine seeing that number, it probably made it even harder for me to fall asleep thinking about that. I’ve actually noticed when I was doing sleep studies etc if I thought about that it would happen more as if I was on high alert and couldn’t fall asleep.

And I agree. The times I’ve relaxed and not thought about this stuff, I’ve fallen asleep and had negligible centrals. When thinking about it I’ve actually noticed them and it’s made me even more difficult to fall asleep.