Been sent my full results for mild sleep apnea.

[Jamaicandon]

What does this mean, I have chronic rhinitis

[Pugsy]

chronic or persistent long standing nasal issues
as opposed to acute which are sudden and short lived usually like the nasal issues we get with an upper respiratory infection and once the cold is gone no more nasal issues.

https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/ear,- ... s/rhinitis

[Jamaicandon]

chronic or persistent long standing nasal issues
as opposed to acute which are sudden and short lived usually like the nasal issues we get with an upper respiratory infection and once the cold is gone no more nasal issues.

https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/ear,- ... s/rhinitis

What do my actual results mean? I need help interpreting them

[Pugsy]

They mean what it says...very mild OSA
Read this for a more in depth explanation as to what each point means
http://adventures-in-hosehead-land.blog ... -test.html

Number of arousals is high though but they don't mention if the arousals were related to breathing or if they were just spontaneous.

Was this a home sleep study?

[Jamaicandon]

They mean what it says...very mild OSA
Read this for a more in depth explanation as to what each point means
http://adventures-in-hosehead-land.blog ... -test.html

Number of arousals is high though but they don't mention if the arousals were related to breathing or if they were just spontaneous.

Was this a home sleep study?

This was a home study, what does high arousals indicate? I am constantly tired

[Pugsy]

High arousals mean you wake up a lot during the night for some reason or other.
Crappy sleep quality. Waking up a lot means you don't get the nice normal progression of each sleep stage and most likely also don't get the amount of time needed in each sleep stage for the restorative powers of sleep to work their magic.

Most home studies don't measure a person's sleep stages...and it doesn't appear that yours did or it would mention the amount of sleep in each sleep stage. There is a more comprehensive sleep study that does measure sleep stages.

When we don't know sleep stages we don't know what caused the arousals.
There are breathing or respiratory related arousals....and these can be helped by cpap but there are also what are called spontaneous arousals and that means we don't know the cause. They could be from any number of things but cpap can't do much to fix those causes.

To fix a problem we first have to try to identify the cause of the problem.

[Pugsy]

Read this. Forget the alcohol part and substitute anything for it as to how important sleep quality is to people.
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/article ... tity-sleep

You have crappy sleep quality and some of it might be related to the OSA and airway issues but some of it could be related to other stuff.
Medication side effects prime culprit for a lot of people...pain or other health issues is another prime culprit....anything that can disturb sleep and wake us up.

We don't always remember awakenings. So just because we don't remember them doesn't mean they didn't happen.

[Jamaicandon]

Read this. Forget the alcohol part and substitute anything for it as to how important sleep quality is to people.
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/article ... tity-sleep

You have crappy sleep quality and some of it might be related to the OSA and airway issues but some of it could be related to other stuff.
Medication side effects prime culprit for a lot of people...pain or other health issues is another prime culprit....anything that can disturb sleep and wake us up.

We don't always remember awakenings. So just because we don't remember them doesn't mean they didn't happen.

Does my result mean I am aroused 40% of the night

[Pugsy]

High pulse rate average happening 49 times an hour. No way of knowing what percentage of the night it might be.

Your sleep study wasn't very comprehensive in the amount of information it gives you.

Pretty much a pulse rate and oximeter (oxygen levels) and that's it.

[Jamaicandon]

High pulse rate average happening 49 times an hour. No way of knowing what percentage of the night it might be.

Your sleep study wasn't very comprehensive in the amount of information it gives you.

Pretty much a pulse rate and oximeter (oxygen levels) and that's it.

That seems very high, high pulse 49 times a hour, am I having heart attack !! Lol
Where should I go from here?

[Pugsy]

It doesn't necessarily mean that the pulse rate went way high....it just means it changed within whatever parameters the results are evaluated by.

Where do you live? May make a difference as to what options you have available to you.
Some parts of the world wouldn't do anything about these results.

[Pugsy]

In addition...you mentioned chronic rhinitis....what is going on with the nose to lead you to say that?
It wouldn't be impossible for nasal issues to be responsible for all this.

[rick blaine]

Hi Pugsy,

Jamaicandon is posting from the UK. He started an earlier thread a week or so ago – a thread to which I contributed.

I've already told him that he doesn't meet the NHS threshold for CPAP treatment (which is an AHI of 15 and above).

I suggested he get himself referred to ENT to have the rhinitis addressed directly. But – I gathered from one of his posts in the other thread – he has already been seen by an ENT department. And, he sez, that didn't help.

Seems to me he should try ENT again – let them try some more and different things – including life-style and home-environment changes.

Absent that, in the system here, he goes back to his GP – who can re-refer him (to ENT), and who can also initiate other testing.

[Jamaicandon]

Hi Pugsy,

Jamaicandon is posting from the UK. He started an earlier thread a week or so ago – a thread to which I contributed.

I've already told him that he doesn't meet the NHS threshold for CPAP treatment (which is an AHI of 15 and above).

I suggested he get himself referred to ENT to have the rhinitis addressed directly. But – I gathered from one of his posts in the other thread – he has already been seen by an ENT department. And, he sez, that didn't help.

Seems to me he should try ENT again – let them try some more and different things – including life-style and home-environment changes.

Absent that, in the system here, he goes back to his GP – who can re-refer him (to ENT), and who can also initiate other testing.

In my situation would it be worth getting a cpap machine? ENT has not helped me. What should i do? Back to my GP?

How would you interpret my full results?

[Pugsy]

Thanks Rick...I thought he was UK but couldn't remember for sure and no time to go digging around in old posts.

To the OP...I am pretty much in agreement with Rick. I would think you need to address the rhinitis issues first if at all possible.
A chronically congested nose could just as easily cause arousals as OSA. If you can't breathe easily and comfortably it makes it awfully hard to sleep well and not have a lot of arousals simply from the nasal issues.

In all honesty I doubt that cpap would help but I suppose you could try it and see. Sometimes the added moisture actually helps nasal congestion. Sometimes it makes it worse though.
You would have to do it on your own though as your results didn't put you up in a category that the UK NHS will provide a cpap for a person.

I have always felt that the best thing to do is try to address known problems first and then see what is left over that need to be worked on. The rhinitis is a chronic known problem that could be a significant culprit in the arousals and how you feel. It needs to be addressed some how.

If you were here in the US I would tell you to see another ENT if the first one was useless. I do understand it isn't so easy in the UK system of health care unless a person goes private and pays for it themselves.