Flow Rate Drops - Leaks?

[wut]

Hello


If anyone can provide some insight into last night's data, I would be very appreciative.

Specifically, I'm trying to understand if the flow rate drop around 12:30 a.m. last night was related to a leak issue or perhaps something else. A secondary question is should I increase my IPAP/EPAP from 15/10 to 16/11 or 17/12 to eliminate the pressure cycling from the machine and drive out the spikes.

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

[Pugsy]

The sawtooth looking spikes are just the normal pressure test probes. That's just the machine testing things and there's no need to try to eliminate them...and 1 cm increase wouldn't do it anyway...you would still have them but they would just go a little higher.

You need to zoom in on the flow rate to see if the flow was actually reduced. Compressed in this view is not accurate way to look at things.
I see what you are maybe looking at but that reduction doesn't mean anything when looking at it at this level.
I think you were likely mouth breathing during that period of time.

[wut]

Thank you Pugsy for the quick response!

It's possible I was mouth breathing (and my sleep studies show I'm a serious offender), I wear a chinstrap and hadn't suspected mouth breathing to be an issue. I'll have to try tape and see how it works.


Looking at the detailed flow rate data, the flow drops from about 40 to 20 and eventually goes back up to 20. I've posted a picture below, but I'm not so sure image provides sufficient details. Please let me know.

[Pugsy]

I don't know if that reduction is related to leak or not. It does start at roughly near the same time and if it is mouth breathing the exchange in the air flow through the mouth may either have impacted the sensors or the flow was perhaps divided between mouth and nose. It's hard to say for sure and I am not sure that there is any clinical significance.

If you see leaks similar often and see reductions in the air flow like this often then you can probably make some sort of correlation...what to do about it...well that's something else. You don't hit large leak territory and if you sleep through it and feel decent then I don't know that I would worry about it.
I often see little plateaus like that and I am certain it is related to a bit of mouth breathing but they rarely hit large leak territory and if they do they don't stay there long and I sleep great and feel decent so I really don't want to do the tape thing just for 15 to 30 minutes of leak that might be in large leak territory for 5 minutes. I have taped and tried a chin strap and they disrupt my sleep far worse than a little bit of leaking might impact things.

I just now downloaded my last night's report. I have evidence of probable mouth breathing lasting about 45 minutes around 20 L/min (ResMed S9 machine) with maybe 10 minutes at 26 L/min...and I see a little bit of reduced flow similar to what you are seeing. Maybe not quite as remarkable as yours but it's there.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that there seems to be some sort of correlation but to what extent I don't know what to make of it. Is it just the sensors not picking up the breathing because of mouth breathing or is the leak letting some of the flow that would be sensed go out the mouth...meaning the actual breathing may not have changed all that much but it looks like it did because of sensing of the machine.

Is the flow really reduced...or does it just look that way? I don't know.
Interesting question that I don't know an answer to and I don't know of any way to isolate an answer with any certainty.