AHI Question

[roadkingrick]

What exactly, Does 0.3 AHI mean? I understand the whole numbers representing the 10 second pauses, but whats the .3 mean 3/10ths ? I have an S9

[Pugsy]

AHI is a per hour average of all the events over the entire night.
So yes, three tenths per hour average. You probably had only 1 or 2 events over the entire night and diving that 1 or 2 by the number of hours when the machine was on will give you the per hour average.

[roadkingrick]

well that was easy, thanks so 5hrs with a ahi of 5.0 is one an hour. Hence 1 in 5 hours would be 0.2 ?

[Pugsy]

I think the machines just do tenths (one decimal point) on the LCD screen. Sleepyhead software goes to hundredths or 2 decimal points.

Less than 1.0 AHI usually means next to nothing in terms of number of events if there were any hours of use at all.
Pretty darn good and hard to beat.

AHI is an average per hour over the entire sleep session. The apnea events may have all happened in one hour or spread out over entire sleep session.
AHI of 5.0 means an average of 5 per hour so over 5 hours the total number of events would be 25.
AHI of 1.0 means an average of 1 per hour over 5 hours and the total number of events would be 5.

[palerider]

well that was easy, thanks so 5hrs with a ahi of 5.0 is one an hour. Hence 1 in 5 hours would be 0.2 ?

no an ahi of 5 is 5 per hour, on average, so for 5 hours, 25 incidents.

[Julie]

Agree with PR.

[Tatooed Lady]

well that was easy, thanks so 5hrs with a ahi of 5.0 is one an hour. Hence 1 in 5 hours would be 0.2 ?

no an ahi of 5 is 5 per hour, on average, so for 5 hours, 25 incidents.

I thought my brain had shorted out again. Thanks for clearing the fog.

[palerider]

well that was easy, thanks so 5hrs with a ahi of 5.0 is one an hour. Hence 1 in 5 hours would be 0.2 ?

no an ahi of 5 is 5 per hour, on average, so for 5 hours, 25 incidents.

I thought my brain had shorted out again. Thanks for clearing the fog.

confusing a custodian of such dangerous machinery as you operate is not something I'd like to see happen!

you might be musing over that puzzling bit of misinformation while driving and... well, let's just not.

[Gparr]

Not to hijack this thread...but Ido have an AHI question.

I am just passing the 1.5 years of therapy. My AHI has been sitting on .3 to .8 for quite awhile. Should I (or are there any ways to) try and get it to 0?

[Pugsy]

My AHI has been sitting on .3 to .8 for quite awhile. Should I (or are there any ways to) try and get it to 0?

I wouldn't try if it were me. Less than 1.0 AHI means maybe one or two or three events during the night and depending on what they are there might not be anything that can be done anyway. Like if the flagged event was a central..it's normal to have an occasional central anyway and we can't fix them with cpap machine anyway.
Plus it's possible that the machine has maybe flagged awake breathing SWJ irregularities as some sort of event and it really isn't worthy of a flag.

AHI 0.0 doesn't guarantee anything except seeing a nice math score. Doesn't guarantee the "miracle" or really much of any change in how a person might feel.

I remember a long time ago a newbie who was lucky enough to get an AHI of 1.4 right from the start but was so intent on getting the 0.0 thing that he/she kept raising the pressure in an effort to kill all events and all that happened was a really bad case of aerophagia. The AHI never really changed but the belly pain got to be really bad.
AHI 0.0 is nice to see when it happens but it is an unrealistic goal to strive for.

[palerider]

Not to hijack this thread...but Ido have an AHI question.

I am just passing the 1.5 years of therapy. My AHI has been sitting on .3 to .8 for quite awhile. Should I (or are there any ways to) try and get it to 0?

the relentless quest for 'perfection' will quite possibly result in worse sleep.

[cathyf]

One thing to remember about AHI is that it's an average, and so it could possibly be hiding something serious. If you have short events that don't wake you up, scattered throughout the night, then you are getting plenty of good sleep. But if the events are long or clustered in such a way that your oxygen levels are getting compromised, then that IS serious. Remember that AHI is a count of events, and if you stop breathing long enough to cause brain damage or death it only takes one!

That would be pretty unusual -- usually if events are big they are also going to be frequent. But this is why you shouldn't just focus on one number, you need to put your numbers in context. And this is what is scary about using a brick -- your first sign that your (low) AHI isn't the whole story could be waking up dead...

[bv1800]

What exactly, Does 0.3 AHI mean? I understand the whole numbers representing the 10 second pauses, but whats the .3 mean 3/10ths ? I have an S9

3/10 is right, but not 3/10ths.... 3 per 10 hours, is the way to interpret it (it's an average rate per hour so .3 in 1 hour becomes 3 in 10 hours). You probably didn't sleep for 10 hours, so it's likely that you had 2 in roughly 6 hrs 40 min (give or take 10 min or so) or 1 in 3 hrs 20 min (give or take 5 min or so).