Hypopneas

[racprops]

I had a bad night last night...woke up a 1:25 AM and had a problem with being dizzy, light headed and had another peak Blood Pressure reading of 179/98 with a heart beat of 85...this was completely out of left field...My sleep apnea machine did report a batch of apnea, but not super bad..but is lasted for about 35 minutes and during that time it read AHI of 68.88...during that 35 minutes my overall score for the 7 hours of sleep was AHI 10.80

Sadly I do not currently have a sleep Doctor so I have have been self treating..

A friend with some Medical back ground thinks I when into hypoxia, low O2 and that was why I woke you with those symptoms.

I do have a O2 meter that I can ware all night and will start waring it again..sadly I had no warning of this so had not been using it.

I have almost NO Obstructive apneas,(very rare) I mainly have light Clear Airway Apneas and mostly I have Hypopnea...

One Flaw of the ASV machine on auto is how it samples the last 5 to 10 breaths to judge the breathing rate, and because of that I think I can slowly lead it into a danger zone rate of too little...

I am thinking I need to change that function, BUT the chores are: OFF (with no experimentation of what THAT will do...) AUTO (which I believe is how I am getting into trouble)and a setting of a fixed rate of 4 to 30BPM...

Silly thing does not have a min BPM setting which I think would be the best..let me breath at my own rate until it gets too slow and low and take over...

The machine did respond with higher pressure..but it seems not to help as I needed it...

As hypopnea seems to be my main problem up until now I did not see any way nor reason to try to do anything for it...now I think I need to..

Any suggestions/advice..(yes I am even thinking of looking for a Sleep Doctor...)

[Pugsy]

May I suggest that you add "ASV" to your subject line to get the attention of ASV users so that they will see you have a special machine and chime in quicker.

Could you also post the detailed report image from last night?
If you don't know how we talk about it here
Screen shot thread viewtopic.php?f=1&t=81072&p=737779#p737779

Yes, it would have been nice to have the pulse ox report from last night but I know it's difficult to predict when the bad nights are going to happen. I don't know about you but my crystal ball is down for repairs.
Do you have these bad nights often or is it rare?
What is your usual night AHI and what is is made up of with each category?

[Julie]

What are the chances the CO2 vent was accidentally blocked by bedding at the time, making you feel awful and causing your BP to spike?

[JDS74]

My experience with Hypopneas on my ASV machine is that they are seldom real. I experimented with setting the back up rate to a fixed value significantly lower than I was experiencing. In my case I set it to 10 BPM.
Closely examining the details of the wave data revealed significant instability in the rate of breathing. It appears as if the algorithm is interpreting this variability as hypopneas. Your experience may be different.

If you think that the auto setting is causing problems, try setting the back up rate to some number just a little lower than your measured rate. In that mode, it is indeed a minimum setting and the machine won't let you go lower than that.

Can you post a report that shows the breathing data for the 30 minutes or so just before you woke up so you can see if you speculation about breathing rate is correct?

[racprops]

Thanks I will post my Sleephead readings at the bottom.

My machine does not have a Min Breathing rate only auto/off/and a fixed rate...

Perhaps I need higher min pressure??

As far as I can tell this is anew problem and so far I only have had a couple of them..but I may have had the other times but did not see them.

My main apnea is Hypopnea and Clean Airway….I seem to not have the most common Apnea, of a Obstructive Apnea where the throat closes blocking breathing..my ASV Machine is able to both test and report on these problems (and my sleep study also showed this problem which is why I had to get a top of the line ASV CPAP Machine.. a normal CPAP only made it much worst..) It reported I have Complex Apnea..

Both my type of Apneas suggests my body just does not keep breathing…and this might be able to use a weakness of my ASV CPAP Machine, it uses the last 5 to 10 breaths to figure what I am doing and should I stop breathing it takes over…but in my case as I slip farther into Hypopnea slowly I can take the poor machine down with me…one lack is it cannot be set for a Minimum Breathing rate or how deep a breath I need to take...

So last night for the first time I turned off the Automatic setting and set it to run at a fixed breathing rate.

I also will/am wearing my O2 and pulse monitor which records all night.

I also am trying to film digitally my sleep.

I don’t know how long the 2 GB SD cards will record…Will find out tomorrow.

I also have Positional Apnea which in my case IF I get flat onto my back I get Apnea…if I can force myself to stay on my side I can get very low readings even zero Apneas per night…

But I do wake up some times flat on my back…but I also wake up sleeping on my side which in its self-causes body stiffness and light pain, so I get up and sit for a ½ hour relaxing. It is a battle off lose/lose…either way I have a little problem getting a good night’s sleep.

I post these thing to both share and to get help and feedback and this post has helped me figure out what happened..

Thanks for your help and support..and I hope these will help someone else whom might have this kind of problem as well.

Here is the first sleep cycle with the main event of the last 35 minutes..where i woke up with the problem...









Thanks for your interest and help.

[Julie]

Have you considered trying a soft cervical collar to keep your head up (if it's down towards your chest a lot) as it has made a big difference for some people in how it keeps their airway open, and for some reason I have a feeling it could help you.

[ButtermilkBuoy]

Have you considered trying a soft cervical collar to keep your head up (if it's down towards your chest a lot) as it has made a big difference for some people in how it keeps their airway open, and for some reason I have a feeling it could help you.

He needs to work on getting his machine settings right, but he could also try the collar. The collars make a big difference for many people that use them.

Racprops, If you do use a collar and get good results, remember that the settings will probably not work well if you decide to skip the collar one night.

[ButtermilkBuoy]

ASV Hypopneas

BTW Racprop, You must have edited the subject in a following post and it doesn't show in the topic list. Now you need to edit it in your initial post so that it shows in the topic list.

[racprops]

Thanks but my video of my sleep shows that not to be a problem...

I do not have any blockage, I simply forget to breath...

I read up on that years ago, seems there is a complex system in our bodies that trigger the next breath, something to do with Corbondixide (best spelling I could come up with and perhaps the wrong word too) build up in the lungs that causes you to take the next breath, with people like me this trigger fails to do a good trigger.

[ButtermilkBuoy]

Thanks but my video of my sleep shows that not to be a problem...

I don't want to leave this thread without replying to that misinformation.

There is no way to tell from a video that a soft spinal collar will be ineffective or effective. The only way you can tell is by trying it and carefully observing the results in the data. The change in the positioning of the airway can appear subtle, but the difference in breathing can be large.

Now suit yourself.

[JDS74]

My machine does not have a Min Breathing rate only auto/off/and a fixed rate...

The fixed rate is the minimum when selected.

I don’t know how long the 2 GB SD cards will record…Will find out tomorrow.

The 2GB card will hold more than two years of data.

The soft cervical collar is useful for FFM users in keeping jaw drop to a minimum and therefore limiting leaks. In your case, leaks are quite low so it may not be helpful providing you are not using a chin strap. If you are using a chin strap, it would be better to use a cervical collar instead.

[Sheffey]

The soft cervical collar is useful for FFM users in keeping jaw drop to a minimum and therefore limiting leaks.

Is that something you know by experience or just an assumption?

I have worn a collar for years. It has nothing to do with limiting leaks - I had no leak problems before I used the collar.

It has nothing to do with jaw drop. My mouth still opens when I go into REM sleep.

The benefit of the collar is that it holds your neck in a better position for breathing. The collar keeps my max pressure down a significant amount. If I don't wear the collar the machine senses problems and takes the pressure to near 20 cm. With the collar the pressure max is usually 14 or 15. This makes for a better night of sleep.

[Sheffey]

I don't want to leave this thread without replying to that misinformation.

There is no way to tell from a video that a soft spinal collar will be ineffective or effective. The only way you can tell is by trying it and carefully observing the results in the data. The change in the positioning of the airway can appear subtle, but the difference in breathing can be large.

Now suit yourself.

I agree. You can't tell by looking at a person sleeping whether or not a collar will help.

[JDS74]

The soft cervical collar is useful for FFM users in keeping jaw drop to a minimum and therefore limiting leaks.

Is that something you know by experience or just an assumption?

Personal experience with my jaw drop. Its certainly possible, as in your case, that head positioning improvements can also be a benefit of using a cervical collar.

BTW, did you switch from a chin strap to cervical collar? Chin straps can lead, for mouth breathers, to higher pressures because they move the jaw slightly back for some models of chin strap.

[racprops]

My understanding is the idea of both a chin strap and a collar is to help holds your neck in a better position for breathing IE keep it from blocking the air way??

Please note I do not have any blockage...I just don't breath...Central Apnea= clear air apneas, and Hypopneas...no blockages..

And as the first poster said the collar would help stop my head from tilting down and blocking my air way I felt that I can see that my head does NOT tilt downward in my video I was right with my answer.

I am told no home used CPAP ASV machine has a Minimum Breathing Rate setting..that I have the best one.

Now as I know this is not conclusive but last night with the FIXED Breathing rate I got this reading: