Couple questions form this newbie....

[angelc]

So I have been on the machine for just about four weeks and I have been able to wear it the whole night for the past 5 days so there is progress.YAY!

Nevertheless, I still feel crappy, I am still nodding off while driving (today was a bad bad bad day....almost an accident...twice ) and I am so frustrated. When I had my sleep study, partly through the night they put the CPAP on me and the next day I felt the best I have felt in more than 10 years. I woke up easily and full of energy that whole entire day, no nodding off, and I was just happy. While I am glad that my AHI is down to less than 1 most nights, I just want to feel rested.

I downloaded SleepyHead and got my data from my machine. Unfortunately, on sleepyhead is not getting all the data and the pretty graphs aren't showing up, only the basic summary. Is it because it is not compatible with my machine?

Anyways, it it showing that I having both obstructive and central apnea every night about 60%-70% to 30%-40% respectively. I remember when I went to my sleep doctor, I saw his P.A. that day and she was the one that wrote the script for the machine. I said something about a bipap because the actual doctor told me about the different options when I saw him several weeks before. If I am having both obstructive and central apnea, will a CPAP work for both? Do I need a different machine? Could the pressure be too low? (currently at

I see my doctor in one month, I had to move the first compliance appointment back a bit because I will be out of town and that was the next available time. Please educate me, I want this to work really bad!

[Pugsy]

Unfortunately, on sleepyhead is not getting all the data and the pretty graphs aren't showing up, only the basic summary. Is it because it is not compatible with my machine?

No.. If you really have the Elite SleepyHead is compatible and if you are seeing a breakdown of the AHI into each category you should have at least the Elite. The half assed brick CPAP (model name) doesn't do event breakdown.
Your machine needs to have the SD card in the machine all night when you are using it or you only get the summary data. The data files needed for the pretty graphs go directly on the SD and aren't stored on the machine.
Has your SD card been in the machine all night?

If I am having both obstructive and central apnea, will a CPAP work for both? Do I need a different machine? Could the pressure be too low?

It depends...sometimes cpap will work...it depends on how many centrals and what is causing them.

it it showing that I having both obstructive and central apnea every night about 60%-70% to 30%-40% respectively

Percent doesn't really mean much because the pie chart doesn't tell us how many are actually happening. It just tells us the whole pie breakdown.
If your AHI was 10 and the Centrals were 5 and the obstructive were 5...each would be 50 percent of the pie.
If your AHI was 2 and the central was just 1 and the obstructive was just one...each would be 50 percent of the pie.
So we need AHI and the event category breakdown....not percent of the pie.

If your AHI is down to 1...you can't be having very many centrals or obstructives.
And I doubt that you need a bilevel or other special machine to treat centrals.

There may be something else going on contributing to your not feel so great.
We need more information.
Seeing the detailed graphs for one thing.
Also do you take any medications, if so what?
How many hours of sleep are you getting and are those hours fragmented with a lot of wake ups or are you sleeping soundly for the most part?

[angelc]

No.. If you really have the Elite SleepyHead is compatible and if you are seeing a breakdown of the AHI into each category you should have at least the Elite. The half assed brick CPAP (model name) doesn't do event breakdown.
Your machine needs to have the SD card in the machine all night when you are using it or you only get the summary data. The data files needed for the pretty graphs go directly on the SD and aren't stored on the machine.
Has your SD card been in the machine all night?

Ok, my machine didn't come with an SD card, so I bought one. Long story short, it was defective and wouldn't even let my machine start but only brought the basic information which was what I was seeing. I got a new SD card yesterday and last night was the first night I slept with it in so I did see the graphs. I hope I did this right....


http://i.imgur.com/UFOLma9.jpg



Here is one of the "summaries" I got without the SD card at night. I know to keep it in now! The other nights that I used without the SD card are similar and show no RERA. I still am confused about RERA even though I looked at definitions. In my sleep study, the technician and as well as the P.A. when discussing things said I had very little leg movement.

http://i.imgur.com/ThaRIHi.jpg

There may be something else going on contributing to your not feel so great.
We need more information.
Seeing the detailed graphs for one thing.
Also do you take any medications, if so what?
How many hours of sleep are you getting and are those hours fragmented with a lot of wake ups or are you sleeping soundly for the most part?

No medications at all and I usually get 6.5 to 7.5 hours of sleep. The times I do wake up is when the four year old in the next room wakes up and for some reason the monitor ended up permanently on my side...my wife said she doesn't have room for it....hmmm???

[Pugsy]

my wife said she doesn't have room for it....hmmm???

Well...there may be a method to her madness. You two will have to work that out.

I still am confused about RERA even though I looked at definitions. In my sleep study, the technician and as well as the P.A. when discussing things said I had very little leg movement.

RERAs have nothing to do with leg movement.
It's a respiratory arousal or change in breathing pattern that looks like there is an arousal (either partial or full to awake) that you may or may not remember.
When we see a lot of them it usually means poor sleep quality with fragmented sleep.
You didn't have very many despite the pie chart making it look ugly...if you only had 1 RERA and nothing at all of any of the other events the whole pie would be RERA. You didn't have enough RERAs to worry about.

. I got a new SD card yesterday and last night was the first night I slept with it in so I did see the graphs. I hope I did this right....

You did good...only thing I might suggest is to omit the AHI graph because it isn't needed and include the Flow Limitation graph instead. Sometimes Flow limitations give us a hint of something that might be going on that might mess with how a person sleeps or feels.
We don't need the AHI graph...we already have better AHI information on the left side.
You might also omit one of the pressure graphs..we don't need both and since your pressure is fixed the pressure graph doesn't really tell us a lot.
I don't think your leak graph will be earth shattering because I didn't see any large leaks flagged on the events graph but maybe there are a lot of little leaks that could be messing with your sleep.

Overall a really decent report especially for a newbie.
If you wake very often during the night that is going to mess with the normal progression of the sleep cycles and that will of course mess with how we feel during the day because you might not get adequate sleep in each stage because of the wake ups. It's tough with kids...especially little ones so do the best you can.
If you do wake up and you can't blame it on the little one try to remember if something bothered you...mask comfort or leak or something.

Now remember it's normal to wake during the night after REM stage sleep...it's common but we don't normally remember it. So a handful of awakenings doesn't really mean something bad. They become bad when there's a whole bunch of them.