Oximeter results help

[doodle123]

Hi, For years now I have been suffering from unexplained tiredness and memory problems, I always feel tired however much I sleep. I have been to my GP several times and had various tests done to no avail. I have seen a video of myself sleeping and was quite alarmed by the noise of own snoring, I even wake myself up at times as i snore so loudly. I suggested to my GP that my tiredness maybe caused by sleep issues but he dismissed this straight away as I was not overweight nor did I have a large neck size. I have just bought a oximeter and I have attached the report below of my sleep last night. I would really appreciate some feedback as I have no idea if this is normal or not. Thanks

[doodle123]

I cant seem to be able to attach the image of the report?

[Julie]

Your GP is very out of date... weight and neck size are not indicators of apnea by themselves and many, many people who are not overweight have apnea. You want to push for either a new doctor altogether (I would) or at least referral to a pulmonologist or neurologist who specialize in sleep disorders, and certainly an in-lab sleep test - don't take no for an answer. As far as your oximeter goes, can you just report the result here for now, or else download to Imgur.com and leave a link to the report in this thread - it's how we generally post graphic ones here.

[doodle123]

The report is here http://imgur.com/a/twy7p

[Julie]

Hi - it looks normal to me... you would have had to be below 88 for more than 10 secs per event to be considered apneic, but you stayed above 90 the whole time (unless someone else has a diff. interpretation).

[doodle123]

My normal resting base is 98% but when asleep there looks like there is alot of fluctuation that does not happen when i am awake, even if i hold my breath for a minute when awake my sats still are above 94%. The report says spend 37.8% of time sleeping below 95% which does happen when i am awake so it that normal?

[Pugsy]

It's normal to have some reduction in oxygen levels when we sleep. I don't know how much of a drop is considered "normal" but I think up to around 3% seems to stick in my memory.
Some of your sudden drops could be loss of contact artifacts because real desats don't drop so suddenly. If you zoom in on some of those sudden drops and see a gray/black like then that's loss of contact and when you see an artifact like that the data is a bit whacky and it takes a little bit to stabilize.

Finally lack of significant drops doesn't always mean no sleep apnea. Not everyone will have significant drops with their sleep apnea events. I have a friend who had an in lab sleep study and her baseline O2 was around 97% and she never dropped below 94% despite having an AHI in the 60s.
Pulse ox reports aren't the end all way of diagnosing sleep apnea. It's pretty cut and dry if you happen to see some major desats but the lack of major desats doesn't necessarily mean no sleep apnea.

Oh....the obese fat neck stereotype that your doctor wants to use as a marker....dark ages.
I am female...my neck is skinny...skinny and I weighed about 110 lbs when diagnosed. But I snored bad enough to rattle the windows. Now not everyone who snores has OSA but it's a strong consideration until ruled out.

[menlodoc]

My oximeter reports are in the same format as yours (probably from a nonin oximeter). There is something you need to be aware of to be aware of. The software allows you to set criteria for how it scores your recording. Under the analysis tab you can set percent desaturation. The default is 4%, this means that only when your oxygen blood level drops at least 4%, is it scored as an event. There is some debate in the sleep medicine (academic) community about whether the correct criteria is 3% or 4 % desaturation. What I have found is that my index DOUBLES if I use 3% instead of 4%. This makes sense because a drop of 3% is easier to achieve than a larger drop of 4%. So your index, which was calculated using a setting of 4%, is probably close to twice as much if you use the 3% criteria.