Why so many apneas? Results

[dad1717]

I need some advise from you all. Why do I have so many apneas? Should I increase my pressure (from 9). My leak rate has been very good lately. I feel very rested in the mornings but just wondering. I'm kinda new at reading my data... Don't really like spending money at the sleep doctor for 2 mins. of advise.

[jweeks]

Hi,

I don't know how to read that type of report, so I can only offer something very general. The right way to approach that might be to contact your sleep doctor, and go back for a follow-up titration. If you want to do this yourself, you can try bumping the pressure up a centimeter at a time. Move it up one unit, and try it for a few days. There is a possibility that increasing the pressure can have an adverse effect, so you are a bit on your own in doing that.

One thing I do notice is that it appears that you were nearly clear of events between 3AM and 4:30AM. Do you have any awareness of what was going on? I wonder if you have positional issues. Perhaps you can try sleeping on your side, or elevating your head a bit. In any event, if your AHI number is over 5, you probably do want to go see your doctor.

-john-

[schwawi]

I'm not a Dr., but I'd suggest you take things up a notch to 10 to see if that works better for you. another thing you can do is get yourself a recording oximeter and use that to evaluate your sleep in addition to the CPAP data. Oximeter is more accurate and ODI (Oxygen Desat Index provided by Oximiter) is a good normalized measure, not subject to variations in machine algorithms.

I have moved up on my own pressure 2.6, from 8 to 10.6. Just started gradually increasing the pressure and monitoring the data.... feeling better already.

[ozij]

13 apnea in about 6.5 hours makes for an Apnea Hpopnea Index of 2.

[pitrow]

13 apnea in about 6.5 hours makes for an Apnea Hpopnea Index of 2.

Actually it makes for an Apnea Index of 2. When you also add up all the hypopnea events shown you get an AHI of 8.8

[ozij]

Sorry, that's my inexperience in reading ResScan showing. I didn't ever see them when I looked for them -- now I do.
It's those little blue unlfagged dashes (I was looking for flags).

On a ResMed, AI=2, HI=6.2 is not that bad, since ResMeds tend to report more hypopneas in people's breathing than do other machines.

O.

[schwawi]

Sorry, that's my inexperience in reading ResScan showing. I didn't ever see them when I looked for them -- now I do.
It's those little blue unlfagged dashes (I was looking for flags).

On a ResMed, AI=2, HI=6.2 is not that bad, since ResMeds tend to report more hypopneas in people's breathing than do other machines.

O.

I'd still suggest taking a look at Oxygen Desat data from an oximiter if you can though. I had very low Apnea and high Hypopnea and was getting significant desats from the hypoponeas. once i upped my pressure, this was fixed. my apnea index is still roughly the same from old pressure to new, generally 1.0 or less... my hypopnea index, interestingly, isnt much different - but the desats have come down by more than half....

[Uncle_Bob]

Is this typical or just the odd occurrence? Where you titrated at 9?

It is possible that some of these events are centrals and increasing the pressure may make things worse. However assuming good sleep hygiene the only thing i would suggest is you increase and or decrease the pressure to one or two points around your titrated number. I tried this on my S8 Elite and did not get any consistency at all. I bit the bullet and got the S8 APAP so now assuming no mask leaking i get 0.0 - 0.2 AI and HI of 3.0 - 5.0. I was titrated at 7cm and the APAP will use a pressure of 6.4 for much of the time and rise as high as 12 when it needs too.

[ozij]

Sorry, that's my inexperience in reading ResScan showing. I didn't ever see them when I looked for them -- now I do.
It's those little blue unlfagged dashes (I was looking for flags).

On a ResMed, AI=2, HI=6.2 is not that bad, since ResMeds tend to report more hypopneas in people's breathing than do other machines.

O.

I'd still suggest taking a look at Oxygen Desat data from an oximiter if you can though. I had very low Apnea and high Hypopnea and was getting significant desats from the hypoponeas. once i upped my pressure, this was fixed. my apnea index is still roughly the same from old pressure to new, generally 1.0 or less... my hypopnea index, interestingly, isnt much different - but the desats have come down by more than half....

Very good points and advice.

O.