Leak levels barely into the red zone?

[CPAP_DAD6]

3 wks in on Bipap.

I've noticed about half the nights that my leak level will barely go into the red zone. Shold I really worry about such a small infraction?

[Pugsy]

How long do they stay there?
And exactly how far is "barely"?

[Pugsy]

From my personal experience leaks up to 30 L/min territory don't seem to harm the machines ability to respond, record or deal with apnea events. Between 30 to 35 things start getting a bit iffy and we see some "unknown apnea" flags which means that the machine senses something but can't quite decide what it is.
Over 35 L/min things are really compromised and the further you go the worse it gets.

A lot depends on how long you stay wherever you go.
5 minutes at 45 L/min isn't going to be that big of a deal but 50 minutes at 45 L/min is going to significantly impact therapy, reporting and responding of the machine.

So I always look at 2 things...how far I went and how long was I up to wherever it was I went to.
As long as the times are brief and they don't wake me up...I just shrug my shoulders and move on..
I think that ResMed's line in the sand of 24 L/min is ultra conservative...I hit it briefly fairly regularly but when I use my Respironics machine I never get a large leak flag.

[CPAP_DAD6]

How long do they stay there?
And exactly how far is "barely"?

Varies throughout the night. And just one or 2 marks above the cutoff line. ..

[Pugsy]

1 or 2 L/min above the 24 red line I wouldn't worry about as long as they don't wake me up.
The AHI will still be accurate.
The main problem/concern when leaks are high is that the AHI might be reported as low when in fact it was really high but the machine missed the events.
We have a good example of this happening in this thread
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=111994&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=90
check out the report that is 3rd from the bottom on the page.
The leaks were so bad that the machine didn't know to respond and with this person I know it would/should have responded and his nice low AHI wouldn't have been nice and low if the machine wasn't in such a big leak...but he was WAY above the red line for long periods of time.
We want accuracy so that we know that periods of no apnea flags means nothing happened and not that the machine missed something.