Need advice on Capp for mild/moderate apnea

[joesetx]

My wife who is a nurse told me that I sometime stop breathing while sleeping and snore loudly.
I am a 55 year old man and overweight at 180 lbs and 5' 7".

My family doctor referred me to a sleep clinic but even with blue/cross my out of pocket cost for a sleep study would be $1,500.
I already know I have sleep Apnea. The study seemed like a very expensive way to tell me something I already know.

Last week I did a home test using the Resmed apnea link plus. I returned the test equipment and they phoned with the results and also emailed me the report
When the results were available they indicated mild to moderate apnea with both obstructive and central events.

Here are the numbers

AHI 17

Aeneas were
Obstructive 56%
Central 44%

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I have had chronic insomnia for decades and need meds to get to sleep. These may be a source of some of the centrals.

How much benefit would I get from CPAP?

Could really use some advice from those with real experience.

[Pugsy]

What other sleep apnea symptoms besides the insomnia do you have?
Besides the snoring and wife reporting you stop breathing.

[joesetx]

I have daytime fatigue which makes it harder to get exercise and lose weight.
I don't fall asleep during the day but then again I don't think I have slept without meds since the 80's.

I also suffer from headaches and hypertension.
My blood pressure was under control until about six months ago. During a visit to the doctor it was 150/90.
I really don't want to add a third blood pressure med to my morning bowl of pills.

My reluctance in going on CPAP stems from the experience of other people I know. The general consensus is that the total cost of sleep studies runs around $3,000 and the half the people I know who have gone on CPAP therapy gave up after a short trial.

[Pugsy]

I don't know what meds you take in that bowlful of pills but you might want to look closely at all of them and their possible side effects because sometimes those side effects mimic the symptoms of sleep apnea....like fatigue, poor quality sleep, etc.
Also sleep aids...they can make us feel tired the next day.
I don't know that your meds are totally to blame but they do warrant taking a real close look at.

Bordline OSA with an AHI that is roughly half in centrals...it's real hard to say if you would see much benefit from cpap.
If more of the AHI was obstructive in nature...might be more promising. Remember the centrals we wouldn't treat with cpap pressure anyway. Centrals over 5 per hour...you might even need a different machine and not cpap machine if they were real and not from sleep meds.

Would your doctor write a script for a trial with cpap to see if it maybe helped without going through the sleep studies?

I think forum member ChunkyFrog had a relatively low AHI and she saw quite a bit of improvement. I don't remember exactly what her AHI was but I am thinking in the low teens. So it can happen.

Did they do an overnight pulse oximeter test with your home study to see if your oxygen levels dropped during the night?
If so and it did drop...then that might point to successful cpap therapy helping relieve your symptoms.

[joesetx]

Over the course of 8.5 hours there were 125 desaturations.
I spent 13% of the night at 90%
5% of the night at 89%
2% of the night at 88%

[Pugsy]

That's significant desats.

The centrals bother me. If it weren't for those I would maybe suggest a little DIYing in lieu of a sleep study but if they are real and not related to your meds and/or pressure made them worse...it wouldn't be a good thing.

The newer technology ResMed S9 and Respironics PR System One machines that gather data will flag centrals.
Any chance one of your friends who quit cpap might have one of those machines you could borrow
It has to be one of those though...the older machines didn't flag centrals and no way would I suggest experimenting without being able to monitor the centrals.

You know the routine....ideally a sleep study would be the optimal way to go about things. I have to say it because it's true but I also understand that money doesn't grow on trees and sometimes we don't get ideal in real life.
A lot of people do self treat successfully but they don't usually have nearly half their AHI being centrals.
It does complicate things.