Question about my number and how to get data

[caverman]

Ok....again, I'm a newbie with CPAP. I'm just now getting to where I can sleep most of the night and I no longer wake up with painful dry mouth.

So, someone from the DME company called me again (this is their second time...the first time was within a week to see how things were going) and she said "congratulations for being in compliance". I didn't really know that was an issue but sounds like for insurance reasons I had to use it at least 4 hours a night. My average is around 7 though.

She also said my AHI (?) was really good at .02. I asked her what was normal but she said she didn't know. She didn't know how to actually read the numbers. Anyone know how good/bad/normal that number is?

Also, is there a way for me to start looking at this data from my machine? Obviously the machine can track it but I don't know how to find it. I looked around in my menu and didn't see anything. What other data should I start learning about/reading to make sure I'm doing good or not?

The DME person said that my local DME would be contacting me to make arrangements to get my modem back to them. I remember them talking some about the modem when I first got the machine but honestly I was in information overload and head spinning at the time. It was a while back so I don't remember everything they said but I'm sure I can find out more info when they call for the return.

[caverman]

BTW, not sure if this is what the AHI is but when I did my initial sleep study they said I was stopping breathing 52 times an hour. I'm assuming that was an average. I think my sleep time during the study was 6 hours and I has something like 415 events and 320 of them were from not breathing.

Guess I need to talk my the RT and see if they can give me that detail again so I can write it down. Now that I'm starting to get the mask and sleeping down I need to start figuring out what all these numbers mean and see where I started to where I am now and going forward.

Anyone have any good links on where to start learning?

[Pugsy]

She also said my AHI (?) was really good at .02. I asked her what was normal but she said she didn't know. She didn't know how to actually read the numbers. Anyone know how good/bad/normal that number is?

AHI 0.02 is very good...we like to see it below 5.0 and you are well below that....extremely good AHI when it is below 1.0.

You can see the AHI on the machine's LCD screen but you need to turn on the "Show AHI" choice in the clinical setup menu.
You need to know how to get to the clinical setup menu and turn on that selection and then go to the Info section to see AHI
Read this and watch the video at the bottom to learn about your machine's features.
http://www.apneaboard.com/pr-system-one ... structions

I will send you a private message in a couple of minutes with a link for the provider manual for your machine. It also explains these features and tells you how to get to the clinical setup menu.

You might want to read the links in my signature line. There is software available so you can see even more detail what is going on with your therapy each night. The data that is available on the machine's LCD screen is extremely limited.
I explain the software and how to interpret the data in those links.

You have a modem on the machine right now and I think the modem is covering up the SD slot (which may or may not have a SD card in it) but the modem can be removed briefly to access the SD card slot. If no SD card in the slot you can buy a SD card...generic will work just fine.

[caverman]

Cool....Thanks for the info. I'll start looking at all of this sometime this weekend. I'm sure I'll have more questions along the way.

BTW, what would be a recommend size of and SD card. I have some 4 GIG and 8 GIG cards already.

Thanks for all your help!

[Pugsy]

Doesn't matter what size of SD card.
Actually 1 GB is quite sufficient and won't ever get full but they are hard to find now..just use whichever one you want to use.

[caverman]

Ok....took the modem off and there was an SD card already there. Read through some of the SleepyHead stuff and got the latest 9.3 download. Downloaded, installed, and imported my data.

I still have learning to do about what all the numbers mean but they show a little different than what the DME person told me. I don't see a way to post a screen shot so here are some of the numbers. Someone give me a heads up if they look decent.

Most Recent:
AHI - 0.44
RERA Index - 0.44
Hours Per Night - 6:51
Avg Total Leaks - 38.50
95% Total Leaks - 75.00

Last 7 Days:
AHI - 0.17
RERA Index - 0.28
Hours Per Night - 6:45
Avg Total Leaks - 34.54
95% Total Leaks - 57.00

Last 30 days:
AHI - 0.42
RERA Index - 0.31
Hours Per Night - 7:09
Avg Total Leaks - 40.86
95% Total Leaks - 68.00

I'm assuming SH is going to keep track of this data as well?

[Pugsy]

How to post screen shots discussed here.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=81072&p=737779#p737779

Maybe the DME person meant 0.20 and not 0.02 AHI.
Respironics software only goes to the tenth decimal point...so round up the 0.17 AHI and you have 0.2.
The DME person would be using Encore software and it and the machine onscreen data only reports to the tenths.

[caverman]

Still, you're saying anything less than a 5.0 is good? So, I should strive to stay around the .2 area?

[sawinglogz]

0.2 is great. Usually due to rounding (assuming a full night's sleep) that means you had 2 apneas the entire night. AHI is events per hour.

The biggest question is how you feel, rather than the specific number. I can't usually tell the difference between 0.0 and 0.2, and sometimes I don't feel well rested with 0.3.

But the only time things shot up to 1.6, I definitely felt terrible the next day. (I know, I know, that's ridiculously low, but not for me.)

[caverman]

So I'm still trying to learn about my numbers in SleepyHead.

First off, looking at the Stats page I see that after 6 days I see a change in the Prescription settings. It looks like initially I had an AHI of .76 in 6 days of use. Then they must have changed something (I guess they could do that through the modem?) and my AHI is down to .33 (which is actually up from a recent of about .2). Looks like my pressure stayed the same at 10 but whatever Pr. Rel. (pressure release maybe?) was set from "C-Flex x2" to "C-Flex+ x3". Can someone interpret that into something understandable to me?

Also, I see that any AHI under 5.0 should be good and mine is now averaging a little higher than it was from a .22 (last 7 days) to .31 (most recent). I know that's supposed to be an average per hour so that means I'm have an average of about 15 min (about 25% of an hour) of not breathing?

What is the RERA Index? Is that something I should be watching? Mine is at a .31 right now.

Thanks for the help....

[Pugsy]

Also, I see that any AHI under 5.0 should be good and mine is now averaging a little higher than it was from a .22 (last 7 days) to .31 (most recent). I know that's supposed to be an average per hour so that means I'm have an average of about 15 min (about 25% of an hour) of not breathing?

No...AHI is an average of the number of events per hour...has nothing to do with minutes of not breathing...it isn't a % number.
If your AHI is less than 1.0 per hour...you are averaging less than 1 event per hour over the entire night. Extremely good AHI.

Pr. Rel. column on the statistics page....is just pressure relief.
Your CFlex is considered pressure relief during exhale and the settings are what you changed it to.
Whenever you make a change in something like the exhale relief then SH records that change and you get the change noted on the statistics page.

RERA index. Again an hourly event average for the entire sleep time.
Respiratory Event Related Arousal....definition can be found in the SleepyHead glossary or your provider's manual for your machine.
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/s ... r_Glossary
Less than 1.0 like yours....extremely good.

[caverman]

Thanks Pugsy!