Clear Airways: should we be worried?

[chrialex]

Hello All,

My husband has been on his BiPap for about 70 nights now. There is a consistent pattern of low AHI but frequent CAs. Attached is the overview from his Sleepyhead report, along with a typical night showing a few CA details.

Can anyone let me know if it is something we should be concerned about? He has been doing so well overall that I hesitate to go back to Kaiser and deal with the RT there, who seems to know less about OSA than you guys do, despite his kindness and eagerness to help.

http://208.106.145.7/crgOverview.png
http://208.106.145.7/crgDetail.png

Any info or opinions will be greatly appreciated.

~ Alexis

[CarpeNoctum]

Hi chrialex,
In general it might be possible to say ignore them. There aren't too many and everybody has a few...during sleep transitions.

But you can't be sure if the centrals he is having are problematic. Meaning are they long enough to cause a lowering of O2 level.

Did his sleep study show centrals and were there dramatic drops to his PO2?

Does he wake up rested with no headache?

Many people on the forum use a recording pulse oximeter to determine whether there's any major drops. You probably can borrow one from your sleep Doc or clinic. And if not, they are quite inexpensive and handy to have. Lots of discussion here on oximeters. Just do a search.
CN

[LSAT]

IMO there is not enough to worry about...If there were many, grouped in clusters, and they were significant in length, you may want to mention them to your sleep doctor. As mentioned in the previous post, most of us have some.

[chrialex]

Thanks very much. I feel reassured, but will keep monitoring. He didn't have any centrals in his titration study, but they did suspect arrhythmias which were eliminated after a followup EKG. I would not have been at all concerned if they were not so frequent. I suspect they happen mostly when he's on his back. This morning, for example, they were all clustered in the early morning. He'd pulled our warm comforter up to his neck and had slept the last hour on his back when I was deeply asleep and didn't notice. He was probably in Rem and says he was aware of dreaming. So I guess I'll just relax. Thank Heaven for this forum!!!

[markdh]

For what it's worth, I get reports of six or more centrals nearly every night. They make up the majority of my AHI index, along with hypopneas.

I wasn't diagnosed with central apnea during my sleep studies, and the two nights I've done an at-home O2 study my results were within normal limits, so for now I'm going to ignore them.

Everybody is different, though, so a home O2 study might be a good idea, just in case.