First Week on S9 What AHI Should I be Seeing?

[spitracer]

Hi All!

First week on my S9 Autoset has gone pretty well, have been averaging around 7 hours of sleep. I feel better, have more energy and am less sleepy at work. I did find that I need the face liner under my Quattro FX as my mask tends to leak and sounds like I'm passing gas without it, plus it seems to be more comfortable. I do get a lot of itchy spots and have ordered from Padacheek their cover so I'm hoping that minimizes those stray fiber itches!

My question is what is a reasonable expectation for your AHI numbers? I am averaging around 9 ish at this point with a low of just under 5 and a high as much as 14. I did have the machine with a 15 min ramp and I am down to a 5 and wouldn't have any problems turning the ramp off completely. I also had the pressure drop off to 3 on exhale and over the last few nights have now gone to off........It's amazing how quick you become accustom to this pretty major change in your sleep style!!!

Thanks Chris

[sol]

Resmed draw the line of acceptable leak at and below 24 L/min otherwise it would compromise the therapy and affect the accuracy of measurement.
If your leak is ok than may be pressure adjustment is warranted especially if the 95% percentile pressure which the S9 been at and below for the 95% of the time close or at the maximum set pressure. whats the breakdown of AHI. If using resscan than you can determine if the apnea events occurred as soon you get into bed or just before getting up in the morning while you,re awake in this case they don,t count as apnea while you,re asleep. Its said that the reasonable expectation for your AHI numbers is 5 and lower if you,re concerned see your doctor

[chunkyfrog]

If you know what your untreated AHI was, you should see an improvement;
but sometimes it is not all at once.

[spitracer]

OK I think I follow what you are saying. I have downloaded my data to sleepyhead and have started to look at it...it's a lot of data! So it sounds like I need to discount the apnea events just after I go to bed and just as I'm waking up as they will skew my numbers. So if I stick my finger under my mask to itch my nose would that be seen as an event?...I can have a lot of little itches during the night!

So if I see apnea events at the lower numbers then maybe my base pressure is a little low and the machine isn't able to increase the pressure fast enough to keep the event from happening? If the apnea event is happening at high pressure then maybe it isn't high enough?

Is there anyway for sleepyhead to recalc the AHI for lets say 1/2 hour after I go to bed till 1/2 hour before I shut the machine down? I will have a follow up with my doctor in about 3 weeks.

[spitracer]

My AHI has improved significantly! I had a AHI of 68 and it's in the 9ish area or lower now. The only thing I need to go back and look at is my AHI on my side was pretty low and I have been sleeping on my side most of these data days so I still have a good improvement but maybe a little less dramatic than it really looks

[jnk]

. . . feel better, have more energy and am less sleepy at work.

Those are good indicators of success, especially for early in treatment.

. . . My question is what is a reasonable expectation for your AHI numbers? . . . pressure drop off to 3 on exhale . . .

Most of us spend the first several weeks just getting used to using the therapy all night every night to get comfortable with it, and we mostly ignore the numbers IF we are feeling better. Those first few weeks can be important for training our brains that 'this is how it is going to be.'

After that phase, we then shoot for a relatively flat leak line in our data. It doesn't have to be perfect, but mostly even, or as even as we can get it. Your having the right mask for YOU is what can make that probable.

The next phase is the one in which we look at the home-reported AHI from our machines. We can't compare the home-reported numbers directly to the sleep-study numbers, because home machines use different methods for getting their AHI numbers in comparison to how labs do it. The home-machine reported AHI is mostly designed to be used for trending. In other words, we take note of what our numbers are for a few weeks, then we make ONE change to our therapy--maybe we turn off a comfort feature, OR we raise pressure, OR we narrow the range on our Auto--but we don't make several changes all at once because then we won't know which change affected the AHI as reported by the home machine. We then collect data for a week or two to see if our change lowered AHI, increased AHI, or kept AHI the same. Then we know what we are doing as we make further changes to our therapy to get it the best it can be over time.

That is one approach, anyway.