reading data question

[buntin]

thankyou to all who answer the same questions over and over,I have the software for S9machine now I need to be able to understand what it means my data for last night was AHI 2.6 OBSTRUCTIVE .09 CENTRAL 0.5 AND LEAK 18.0 MAX. 38.4 CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT IT ALL MEANS. THANKYOU AGAIN

[Julie]

It means you are doing very well! Presuming, of course, that you feel alright too. Your leak rate is lower than normal - there is a chart with rates for different masks, but you may have to do a search for it here, you obviously don't have central apnea, and your apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) is well below the accepted cut-off of 5 - that's rather arbitrary, but they needed to pick a number.

[Hawthorne]

Since you have a Resmed machine, I don't think that your leak rate is very good. I think, on Resmeds, that leak rate should be 0.0 or close to. If your leak rate is high, your other numbers are not reliable.

Someone with a Resmed will see this hopefully, since I am bumping it up, and let yo know for sure.

[buntin]

Thankyou I do feel good now after having septoplasty and turbinate surgery I am sleeping 8to9 hrs a night and do not take my mask off at all anymore,so I am very pleased as I had severe sleep apnea in the beginning .

[Janknitz]

Whether or not the leak rate is high depends on the mask and the pressure you were at.

There is a chart here: http://www.resmed.com/us/assets/documen ... sa_eng.pdf

38 would be OK if your pressure was at least 16 cmH2O when it was up that high. If your pressure was lower, your leaks are probably too high, but not all night from the looks of it. You need to see when the leaks went up to 38 and how long your leak rate stayed up that high. It might have been just a few seconds while you shifted your position or when your pressures went up during the night,. I'm not familliar enough with Resmed data to tell you how to look at that--someone else will have to chime in. As long as the average leak rate was good, you're probably OK, unless you are having clusters of "events" while your mask is leaking at the higher rate.

In general, though, your AHI's look good, so your mask is probably fine. How do you FEEL????

[Uncle_Bob]

thankyou to all who answer the same questions over and over,I have the software for S9machine now I need to be able to understand what it means my data for last night was AHI 2.6 OBSTRUCTIVE .09 CENTRAL 0.5 AND LEAK 18.0 MAX. 38.4 CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT IT ALL MEANS. THANKYOU AGAIN

I sent you a link to the S9 clinicians manual via PM, it explains all this and more.

[jdm2857]

ResMed xPAPs have a menu setting for the mask, and based on that setting, subtract out the mask vent rate. So the number displayed is the leak over and above the vent rate. (Respironics does not do this.)

But the 18.0 figure is listed as MAX. That max could have lasted for 10 seconds. 90% (Respironics) or 95% (ResMed) leak numbers are much more useful. (The 90%(or 95%) leak rate is the leak rate that you were at or below for 90% (or 95%) of the time.) By excluding the 10% (or 5%) of the night with the worst leak rate, you get a better picture of your mask fit from a single number.

Of course, the graphical data provided by software is much more informative than any single number.

[PetrusKy]

I give you a grade of A-
To get an A, wear a chin strap and get your leak rate closer to 0.0
To get an A+, your leak rate and AHI should be as close to 0.0 as possible