Poll: untreated AHI and prescribed pressure

[bavinck]

Just out of curiosity, what was your untreated AHI and prescribed pressure? If your prescribed pressure changed, along long did it take to change and how much was the change? What is your treated AHI on your prescribed pressure?
Mine is: untreated 43, 8cm and treated ~1.5

[tooter]

My untreated was 15 with a prescribed pressure of 8....I used the 8 for a year along with my brick. I slept well and stopped breathing without knowing my AHI. After a year a had a in home titration with an autoset and my pressure was raised to 10.
Once you start CPAP therapy I think your non treated AHI is meaningless as is last months AHI. What matters is what your current AHI is and how you are feeling. With my S8 Autoset, the only way I check my AHI is daily on the LCD screen. That is the only number I am concerned with.

[star444]

Untreated AHI = 70.5
Pressure = 10
Treated AHI = ??

Since I got stuck with a 'brick' I have no clue how the therapy is working for me. I don't really feel any better, or more well rested, but... I just started therapy on 11/4 and I've had bronchitis for the past 3 weeks.

[ChevyKeith]

My untreated AHI was 110. I've been on two days and getting around 9 AHI now. Was prescribed a pressure of 10.

[Julie]

You're both reading things wrong - the severity of your apnea (number of events per night or on your study) is NOT related to how much pressure it takes to keep your particular airway open. Apples and oranges. You could have had 110 events on the study but need only 8 cm of pressure on Cpap, and the opposite could be true as well - only 20 events on a study, but e.g. a pressure of 15 to keep your throat open.

[bavinck]

You're both reading things wrong - the severity of your apnea (number of events per night or on your study) is NOT related to how much pressure it takes to keep your particular airway open. Apples and oranges. You could have had 110 events on the study but need only 8 cm of pressure on Cpap, and the opposite could be true as well - only 20 events on a study, but e.g. a pressure of 15 to keep your throat open.

Hmm, not sure what you are referring to with this statement. The poll does not imply that AHI and pressure are related. After rereading the responses I cannot see how you would think any of the responders are implying AHI and pressure are related. Just out of curiosity I am interested in what the different combinations are. Let me know where I am implying they are related and I will re-word for precision.

[Julie]

Well it sounded as if you were trying to equate AHI with pressure... I understand your point and maybe jumped to a conclusion myself, but so often people think that a high(er) pressure is necessary for therapy if the 'severity' of their apnea was high, and it's not the case, but maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Long day (esp. having to deal with certain people here about other things.

[bavinck]

Well it sounded as if you were trying to equate AHI with pressure... I understand your point and maybe jumped to a conclusion myself, but so often people think that a high(er) pressure is necessary for therapy if the 'severity' of their apnea was high, and it's not the case, but maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Long day (esp. having to deal with certain people here about other things.

Its no problem, thanks for clarifying. I am new at this and thought maybe I used some bad language or something that I shouldn't have. At least anyone reading this that thinks they are related will we your post and get educated:) Hope your night gets better with a little cpap-lovin (aka sleep);)

[2 B Sleeping Soundly]

Untreated AHI = 73.8
Starting Pressure = 11.0 cmH2O - 17.0 cmH2O (APAP)
After a few nights the AHI went down to 7.0 - 9.0, but the pressure was hitting the ceiling some nights so I moved the high setting to 18 cmH2O for a few weeks. In time things settled down as my body and mind adapted to PAP therapy and the nightly struggles and fear of going to sleep, from many years of untreated SA/OSA, faded .

Current Pressure = 13.0 cmH2O - 17.0 cmH2O (APAP)
Treated AHI = 0.3 - 0.6
Most nights now the pressure runs between 13.0 cmH2O - 14.5 cmH2O. Luckily, PAP therapy seems to work extremely well for controlling my SA/OSA. I feel very blessed as that is not always the case for all hose heads, especially those who are dealing with additional sleep or medical issues that add complications .

John

[zoocrewphoto]

My untreated ahi is 79+. I say plus because I did a split night study and never reached REM sleep. It could be higher during REM, so a full night might have a higher ahi.

My pressure settings are 11-17 with most of the night between 11 and 13. I have occasional (maybe 2-5) spikes that go up to around 15. On rare nights, a spike or two into the upper 16s.

My treated ahi is usually below 1.

My mom has a lower untreated ahi (can't remember what it was), but her oxygen goes lower than mine due to LONG apnea events. When her pressure was set at straight 10, she had some clusters with apneas lasting longer than 30 seconds (one was 62 seconds). She switched to my sleep doctor, and he looked at two partial nights on my machine that has data. One at her pressure of 10 and one at a range of 10-13. He prescribed an auto machine with 10-15, and she is now under 2 ahi and no more long events.

[RogerSC]

My AHI is about 29...about 40 on my back, and about 6 on my side. Prescribed pressure was 4-10cm, with a treated average AHI of about 1.5. With my current pressure of 11-13cm, my treated AHI averages about 1.

Of course, I didn't have any titration going on at my sleep study. The amount of sleep that I got was only long enough to get data, not long enough to also use cpap and get an actual pressure. That turned out fine, my sleep doctor's guess wasn't bad, an average AHI of 1.5 isn't really too bad. The interesting part, at least to me *smile*, is that I have mostly centrals, while I had no centrals in my sleep study. This leads me to conclude that using cpap is causing them, but there aren't enough to worry about at this point, so I don't.