My Sleep Study Results

[palerider]

Here's another "Something's Rotten in Denmark" observation:

Read the technician notes. Never noted the presence of respiratory events, and indeed noted that there weren't any.

Kinda odd for somebody with 96 obstructive sleep apnea events...

It's good to see your keen observations gracing the forum again.

[Morbius]

Lack of desaturations could be explained by mouth breathing.

That one I have to post on the bulletin board...

[Morbius]

RERA's

What RERAs?

[Morbius]

What should be the more accurate study indicating moderate sleep apnea.
Because the Resmed home sleep study is the same program that had some questionable scoring for me...

Could you explain those using a little more of that "in-depth, engineer-type" analysis for me?

Cause I've used ApneaLink a LOT and think the signals are fine. However, there are 2 considerations in HST here:

1. Is the data accurate? A big issue is signals can be lost, and accurate scoring is not possible. The solution there is send 'em back out again and repeat the study.
2. A lazy scorer can simply hit the automatic scoring button and generate a report without actually reviewing the data. That's a BIG no-no.

[Morbius]

Most importantly, because a CPAP trial is going to be more definitive then these couple tests. His doctor is recommending titration and treatment, you think he should just turn that down and throw these reports away because they may or may not be accurate?

IMO if he (or his insurance) just dropped about 6000 bucks on lab data, then he should get some value for his cost and troubles.

Anyway, IIWM, some/most/all of the raw data is fine, what needs to be done is re-analyze the data. Overall his sleep architecture is fair-poor, with missing REM periods and then a rebound. I would also look at the role of the arousals, specifically if there's a real idiot doing the scoring and they're counting post-arousal events as primary obstructive events (again, I'm not saying he has nothing-- he's got ratty-looking sleep punctuated by tons of arousals).

I'd look at drugs (legal, illegal, caffeine and OTC stuff).

[Pugsy]

specifically if there's a real idiot doing the scoring and they're counting post-arousal events as primary obstructive events (again, I'm not saying he has nothing-- he's got ratty-looking sleep punctuated by tons of arousals).

Maybe he got the same idiot tech I had with my titration study. What a dufus that guy was.

And I am not saying he has nothing either but could this be bad sleep from something not related to airway issues?
If it is then chances of cpap helping much aren't very good I am thinking.

[Geer1]

What RERAs?

They scored 49 "Arousals with Respiratory Events", half of his total arousals.

[Pugsy]

They scored 49 "Arousals with Respiratory Events", half of his total arousals.

But the tech in his notes specifically noted "no respiratory events" anywhere.

Look on the very last page of the sleep study notes where the technician adds his notes.

Can't have it both ways.

[palerider]

They scored 49 "Arousals with Respiratory Events", half of his total arousals.

But the tech in his notes specifically noted "no respiratory events" anywhere.

Look on the very last page of the sleep study notes where the technician adds his notes.

Can't have it both ways.

One only picks up on little things like that if one isn't so eager to show everybody how smart one is.

[Morbius]

What RERAs?

They scored 49 "Arousals with Respiratory Events", half of his total arousals.

Those aren't RERAs. Those belong to the hypopneas and apneas. These guys aren't scoring RERAs.

[Morbius]

It gets better. Keeping in mind he has NO desaturations:

hypop.jpg (30.14 KiB) Viewed 570 times

[Morbius]

The MEAN apnea length is 30.2 seconds and no desat? A 65.6 second apnea and no desat?????

The hypopneas are 2 minutes long??

No such thing. This is like bogus.

[Morbius]

Snoring.

Check out his snoring index. It's 0.0.

[Geer1]

Yawn, instead of trying to prove who is smarter why don't we help the OP...

It seems the consensus is that either

a) The technician didn't report properly or
b) The in clinic test was improperly scored or possibly even falsified

What should the OP do about it?

Phone the clinic and ask why the main report lists 96 long duration apnea events, some in relatively close proximity and yet no desaturation and technicians notes saying no respiratory events?

Ask the referring doctor to request that the clinic provide the data so it can be sent to another clinic for review or to conduct yet another study at a different clinic?

Give up on sleep clinics and just get the equipment being offered and see if treatment helps?

[Geer1]

Check out his snoring index. It's 0.0.

Some background:
-I snore a fair amount