Questioning validity of snore data

[Claerwen]

Last night I had insomnia - I woke up at 1:30 and stayed awake for the remainder of the night. But that's not the point of this post.

The important part of the story is that I left the mask on until a little past 3 hoping to go back to sleep.

When I looked at the data this morning, my AHI for the time I was awake was, as expected, zero (I normally get down to about 4). But my waking snore data was unchanged from when I was asleep.

This makes me think that my snore data can't be trusted. Could it be that it's picking up as snores events such as normal swallowing, throat clearing, changing position, etc?

If so, why do my snore measures drop to zero at 11 and above (I was at CPAP 9 last night)? The only thing I can think of is that the events which are being picked up as snores are relatively minor compared to the xPAP pressure and are drowned out by the wind at higher pressures.

I've always looked at the AHI as the most important metric, but I've seen several comments here that APAP pressure is driven by snore data (I'm not sure I buy that given my snores disappear at 11 but my pressure continues to rise well past that when in broad-range APAP mode.) I've been experimenting with different modes/pressures trying to minimize AHI. So I'm just seeking a more thorough understanding.

Any thoughts?

[Malibu]

My snore data keys a pressure increase about 85 percent of the time after closer looking at things tonight. Snores can lead to hypopneas/apneas so they say.

Sometimes I think the pressure increase gets me up so tonight after 6 days of testing at 8 to 11 and a 90 percent pressure of 8.7 that I am going to try straight CPAP at 9 again.

I also noticed that when I have hypopneas sometimes there is NO pressure increase so maybe the duration of the hypopnea has something to do with that however it seems kind of backwards that snores key it and hypopneas dont. Even an occasional apnea doesn't key a pressure increase.

I guess like everything else it is a subjective thing with the machine and the software. You get close but maybe not as accurate as we would all like.

I have the Remstar Auto w/Cflex and 1.5i software.

Marc


[quote="Claerwen"]Last night I had insomnia - I woke up at 1:30 and stayed awake for the remainder of the night. But that's not the point of this post.

The important part of the story is that I left the mask on until a little past 3 hoping to go back to sleep.

When I looked at the data this morning, my AHI for the time I was awake was, as expected, zero (I normally get down to about 4). But my waking snore data was unchanged from when I was asleep.

This makes me think that my snore data can't be trusted. Could it be that it's picking up as snores events such as normal swallowing, throat clearing, changing position, etc?

If so, why do my snore measures drop to zero at 11 and above (I was at CPAP 9 last night)? The only thing I can think of is that the events which are being picked up as snores are relatively minor compared to the xPAP pressure and are drowned out by the wind at higher pressures.

I've always looked at the AHI as the most important metric, but I've seen several comments here that APAP pressure is driven by snore data (I'm not sure I buy that given my snores disappear at 11 but my pressure continues to rise well past that when in broad-range APAP mode.) I've been experimenting with different modes/pressures trying to minimize AHI. So I'm just seeking a more thorough understanding.

Any thoughts?