Help Interpreting Sleepyhead Results

[Okie bipap]

I recommend you bring your minimum pressure up to 12 cm.

[palerider]

I'd start out by bumping your min pressure to 12... see where that gets you.

[zonker]

Should my settings on Sleephead Chart show apap or cpap? I'm using auto mode in the Resmed settings.

welcome to the forum. your sleepyhead chart DOES show apap, as it should. see under the orange highlighted AHI section? it shows Pap Mode: APAP.

or am i misunderstanding your question?

[zonker]

I'd start out by bumping your min pressure to 12... see where that gets you.

okie & palerider- Thanks very much! I'll try that tonight.

Zonker - thanks for your feedback. For some reason I was thinking it should show cpap rather than apap. I guess my mistake! Thanks for clarifying things for me.

you are most welcome, sire!

[Okie bipap]

If you set it in the CPAP mode, you would be limited to a fixed pressure, not a range of pressures.

[palerider]

If you set it in the CPAP mode, you would be limited to a fixed pressure, not a range of pressures.

Thanks okie! - I've definitely learned the difference between apap & cpap... It's amazing how much I'm learning here!

Btw, good news!!! I was going to wait one more day to see if it was a fluke or not, but I endend up with a .9 AHI (yes, point 9!!!). I never got that low. My prior two nights were around 6.5 & 6.8. Of course I've only been doing this for about 2 weeks or so. - - I took your and palerider's advice of raising my pressure to 12-17.

Awesome, now, let's cross our fingers and hope it wasn't just a fluke... Hopefully, tonight will be good too (sleep varies from hour to hour (which is why auto machines are good) and from day to day... sometimes you have a really good night, and sometimes a .... less good night, without changing anything about cpap. the biggest, least controlled variable in all this, is you. the squidgy meatbag on the end of the hose.

[zonker]

ps: I much prefer Zonker's reference to me as Sire rather than your's as a "squidgy meatbag"!!!

let's compromise and call you SIR squidgy meatbag.

congrats on what you have achieved so far. i'm jealous because it took me so much longer to get where you are now.

here's to continued success!!

[palerider]

Well, I had another good night! AHI = 1.75. And no large leaks which has never happened before! I've attached both of my last 2 days' charts. The only difference is I used a nasal mask 2 nights ago and last night I used the p10. I got frustrated the night before with leaks. Btw, I noticed that my Sleepyhead chart shows 1.0 AHI for 2 nights ago, but my resmed was showing .9 AHI on the screen...i guess rounding and/or more precision with Sleepyhead.

Thanks palerider & oakie for suggesting raising my minimum to 12 from 10. Btw, I noticed last night my upper pressure was close to 17; should I consider bumping it to 18?

Is there anything else based on the charts that could use adjustment? Thanks very much for all your help!

ps: I much prefer Zonker's reference to me as Sire rather than your's as a "squidgy meatbag"!!!

I'd go with min 13, max 20 (there's really no reason for most people to have a max setting that's lower than the max possible, you're just preventing the machine from doing what it may need to in order to help you.

Raising the min can help smooth things out.

PS http://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writ ... gMeat.html

[Dog Slobber]

PS http://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writ ... gMeat.html

pps https://youtu.be/7tScAyNaRdQ

[zonker]

Due to your meaty revelations & Dog Slobber's video link, "Love Me Tender" will never be quite the same...

headshake-dog.gif

[palerider]

Due to your meaty revelations & Dog Slobber's video link, "Love Me Tender" will never be quite the same...

headshake-dog.gif

You're just jealous that you didn't think of it first

[zonker]

Due to your meaty revelations & Dog Slobber's video link, "Love Me Tender" will never be quite the same...

headshake-dog.gif

You're just jealous that you didn't think of it first

i've got to admit, it was damned clever!

[palerider]

It looks like there just might be light at the end of the tunnel...

There is, and most of the time, it's not an onrushing train.

[zonker]

Zonker/Palerider-

It's good that everyone keeps their sense of humor or else we'd all go crazy! - - Btw, thanks Zonker for your compliments/good wishes in your earlier post! Thankfully, there are lots of good people like you guys & oakie who are willing to help beginners get better. It looks like there just might be light at the end of the tunnel...

thank you for the flowers. it's the role i'm trying to assume here. i will never really understand sleepyhead and how to fix my own therapy. (that's okay. i can post charts and follow the experts advice.) so i don't feel qualified to answer technical questions.

but i DO remember how scary it was when i first came here. i felt very exposed and vulnerable. so i've taken it upon myself to help out by welcoming new people and trying to make them feel at home.

thanks for noticing and for the compliment.

[palerider]

I'd like to figure out the interplay of the various graphs...ie, flow limit (which I understand to be a much lower level obstruction...<50%?) - Little by little, I will get a handle on this...even if I'm just a meathead!

Flow limitation is a restriction on the *rate* of air flow.
This is a classic flow limited breath, you can see that the rate of flow (height), is lower, over all, than a normal breath, but the *volume* of air taken in is roughly the same as the normal breath, because there's a higher rate for a longer period of time.



Hypopneas and apneas are defined as a reduction in the *volume* of air being breathed in. With flow limitations, you can still get the same volume of air, you're just having to work harder to get it, Get a straw, and breathe through that, you can still take a full breath, but you'll probably start feeling some fatigue due to the extra work that it's causing you.

Some people don't understand this distinction because it is somewhat complicated. But what it boils down to is that flow limited breaths are flagged, and reacted to because of the *shape* of the breath, not by how much air you were able to take in (tidal volume).

Machines raise pressure due to flow limitations, in effect, to open up the straw, because that extra work breathing is going to cause sleep disturbances.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gie2dhqP2c

Does that make sense?

PS, not meat head... meat bag You meat are funny... wait till I tell them back home what I've seen here.