Variability of sleep study or oximetry readings

[menlodoc]

I am wondering if anyone has noticed that repeated sleep studies ( without treatment) show different values for AHI. For me personally the AHI has varied from 5 to as high as 18. Shouldn't the AHI results be reproducible assuming all other factors are the same? I have had the same thing occur using an oximeter at home, studies done on consecutive nights can vary by as much as 13 episodes per hour.

[palerider]

I am wondering if anyone has noticed that repeated sleep studies ( without treatment) show different values for AHI. For me personally the AHI has varied from 5 to as high as 18. Shouldn't the AHI results be reproducible assuming all other factors are the same? I have had the same thing occur using an oximeter at home, studies done on consecutive nights can vary by as much as 13 episodes per hour.

your presumption assumes a fallacy, that being that your sleep is the same every night.... and it's not.

sleep varies, you have better nights and worse nights, for that matter, sleep varies DURING the night, all you have to do is look at one night's pressure changes for a responsive APAP, (resmed) and then for more fun, compare that with 5 other nights.

that's also the reason that everybody here that's experienced in helping people better their treatment says that once you get fairly good treatment, don't make any changes more than say once a week, because you've got to look at an average of how your sleep has been, don't make decisions based on one, or two nights.