Is this good?

[aManicCookie]

Okay so in a short summary I do not have the money for a sleep study. So I'm doing this all on my own the best as possible. I do not have access to my previous medical records. I have contacted the office for the last 3 days and they keep telling me they are looking and if they find them they will contact me. So yea.

I have a REMstar Auto cpap. I slept with it on last night. In Auto mode...I set it from 7-20. I slept the whole night and did pretty well after I got used to the mask.

I checked the AHI this morning and it says "2.4" Is that good?
I also looked at 90% pressure and it said "16.5", what's that mean and is it good?

I'm not sure what any of it really means I just know you want to keep your AHI under 5 right?

So am I on the right track? I feel pretty good today and I didn't pee a million times last night?

[Pugsy]

I checked the AHI this morning and it says "2.4" Is that good?

Yes. Very good. Well under 5. Bear in mind that as each night passes the nights will combine with an average.
I believe you are using M Series auto? If so should you wish to eliminate combined nights there is a way to reset the onscreen average to a single night. Let me know if you ever want to do this.

The most details can be obtained using the software but you will need that special card reader I told you about. Cheapest I have seen it is $40. I have a software source for you so I can help with that.

I also looked at 90% pressure and it said "16.5", what's that mean and is it good?

It means that for 90% of the night your were either AT OR Below this pressure. There is no good or bad. It is just a number. It can be elevated if you had a few leaks and the machine increased pressure when it tries to fix leaks.
At this point without seeing the reports and leak line. I wouldn't give it a second thought.

So am I on the right track? I feel pretty good today and I didn't pee a million times last night?

Yes, you are on the right track. The cessation of needing to pee a million times an hour means that your heart wasn't stressing over a truck load of events and producing a stress hormone that tells the kidneys to kick into high gear and produce tons of urine. This is good. Also the fact that you already feel better...this is extremely good.

Well done. You can do this without the records or sleep studies. Maybe not ideal but sure better than not doing anything. I would like to see you be able to use the software if at all possible. It really helps because there is so much more than an AHI average.

[cflame1]

2.5 AHI is good... could be better, and might get that way with more nights.

16.5 pressure means that you spent 90 percent of the night at 16.5 cm h2o and under that.

[aManicCookie]

Pugsy... I plan on getting the card and software as soon as I get paid, but that will not be until probably the middle of the next month. Thank you so much for clearing that up. I'll continue to monitor the data that the machine tells me for right now as that's all I have access to.

Do you think I should leave it at 7cm-20cm of pressure?

I do feel a lot better. I woke up this morning not feeling as weak, I had more energy and my headaches weren't nearly as bad. I hope this continues.

[Pugsy]

Do you think I should leave it at 7cm-20cm of pressure?

If the pressure changes aren't waking you up and disrupting your sleep you can sure leave the settings as they are.
Until we see reports we don't know if that 90% means you need that much pressure for the majority of the night or if leaks were forcing it up. Especially since you are reporting feeling well. You may need to increase that minimum a bit but you may not. Give me a bit of time and I will show you an example why we don't always need those higher % numbers all the time. I use APAP. My minimum is 10 cm and my max is 20 cm. Some nights I never get much above 10 cm and the 90% number might say 11 and some nights I hit 19 cm and my 90% number might be 16... I sure wouldn't want to use 16 all the time. I have a couple of good examples. Short on time at the moment. Some chores need to be done.

I will also get the software information to you in a bit.

EDIT: Friday 8 PM. I realized this machine is borrowed from a neighbor who just got a new machine. There is previous user data on the card. We won't have any sole averages for OP here until 7 nights pass. We have no idea what the 90% pressure or AHI was for last night as there are an unknown number of nights with the previous owner's data..

Can't believe I didn't think of this till now.

[Pugsy]

Okay.. as promised some examples of why the 90 % number can be "higher" for either a valid reason or not so valid.
You may well want a little higher minimum but as long as you are feeling better and sleeping well.. it is not a critical issue at this moment.

I do better with my minimum 10 cm. If I drop it below 10 cm my events increase significantly and I can feel the difference. These aren't some of my prettiest nights but they show the variations that can happen from night to night.
I have had a few more snores than I usually get because I have been sleeping on my back a lot more than usual. Broken wrist and cast got me in that habit.

These reports are from Encore Pro with Leak reporting set for Unintentional Leak. It can be changed to show Total leak (which includes mask vent rate) but I prefer these.

First night is probably my most common looking night and not a whole lot going on. This is what I see most of the time. Pressure doesn't change much (the little spikes are slight pressure increases to test things). No leaks to speak of. No particular need for the machine to increase pressure in response to unusual events. Notice the 90% pressure. Not very exciting.


Now this one below the machine increased the pressure ALOT and it is obvious that the reason was leak city. I never noticed the leak. I never noticed the pressure increases. In fact the report shows a break in therapy where must have turned the machine off but I don't remember it at all. It is obvious that the increase in pressure is in response to the leaks. APAPs do this sometimes. So I spent more time at higher pressure and the 90 % number reflects it.


And finally this one. Some significant pressure increases and can't really blame it on a horrible leak. Sometimes I have nights like this. Usually it happens in the wee hours of the morning but this time it happened early. My OSA is documented much worse when I am in REM stage sleep. Sometimes when this happens I just assume some super duper events occurred in REM sleep. I can't tell for sure but it roughly correlates to when REM might be cycling.
Notice the 90 % number here. Could also be some response to those snores too.


So as you can see 3 different nights and all were a bit different in so far as what the machine did. I often see these changes. Sometimes as dramatic as this and sometimes to a much lesser degree. It is for this reason I use APAP. I never know what I am going to need each night. It works for me. The pressure changes have never bothered me. I never know they happen till I see a report. If they did bother me I would likely have to compromise. I don't want to use 16 all the time when often 10 works... I can't rely on the 90% number to tell me what I should be using most of the time because it varies from night to night and a pretty significant variation at that.

So I will close this lecture and hope I haven't confused you more. If something is unclear to you or you can't read my mind between the lines here...just let me know and I will try to clarify things.