Checking AHI when I don't sleep thru the night

This morning I checked the Airesense 10 console and saw 5.25 AHI for the night, not real bad, but not all that good either. I did get up once to go to the bathroom, so I checked out SH data for the night.

Here it is:



My first sleep session was almost 6 hours with AHI of only 0.51, which for me is really excellent! Since I didn't want to rise and shine at 4;30AM, I went back to bed and here is were I often run into issues. That second session of almost 2 hours had a AHI of 21.14 reflecting problems getting back to sleep, so the average for both sessions was the 5.25 AHI I saw in the morning. I can hear Pugsy reminding me to just ignore that second session with all the CAs as "sleep/awake/junk", but the fact is I only got about 6 hours of decent sleep for the night which is not enough. I am almost 3 months into this adventure. So far I am adapting well to the nasal pillows and the machine, but I am still having trouble staying awake in the late afternoons/early evenings. Hopefully at some point I will be able to stay asleep longer, or be able to go back to sleep. I have read about "sleep debt", and I think have a big bill to work down. Do any of you veterans see anything in the data that suggests any different settings?

If I wake up around 2:00 or 3:00, I can go right back to sleep and the second session will look like the first session. However, if I wake up after 4:30, I may as well leave the mask off. My results looks like yours, or worse. I got up at 4:30 for many years to go to work, so my brain still thinks that is my normal wake up time and makes it impossible to get back to sleep. It took me about 3 months before I really noticed I was not sleepy in the afternoon and could sit and watch TV without falling asleep. It only took a couple of weeks for my wife to notice a difference how she felt even though her AHI was staying around 20 or 25. It took about six months for them to get her to where she cold tolerate her required pressure and not have tons of CAs.

If it's any consolation...after 9 years of cpap therapy if I don't get at least 7 hours of sleep then I can pretty much guarantee a need for a nap will be felt in late afternoon. Sometimes I yield and sometimes I don't.
When I do yield...the nap messes with the sleep I end up getting that night....so I get less usually and then I get the need for the nap again and it's a nasty little circle.
So I try really hard to not yield...sometimes I am successful and sometimes I am not.

If I only get 6 hours...I probably will be nodding off sitting upright on the couch the need for a nap will be something I just can't hardly ignore with 6 hours of sleep.

This sleep debt thing...we add to or remove from our "sleep debt" every night. For me it's a debt that rarely ever gets totally paid up.
I have more nights with less hours of sleep than what I need to feel optimal then I do with more hours of sleep to help catch up.

Turn off that second and very ugly session and look at how good your AHI was for the part of the night you were really sound asleep.
Go over to the left side under the statistics and scroll down to the very bottom where it shows your sleep sessions and change the one starting at about 4:40 from green/black to red/black by clicking the mouse on it.
You can leave it turned off if you wish and that session will be omitted from your overall averages.

If I wake up still needing sleep, I go ahead and go back to sleep.
Extra zzzz's do crap with my numbers, but the numbers are not
as important as feeling good during the day.
I guess that getting old comes with new perspective.

Thanks for the replies. It's all so very new and it's hard to know what is "normal" and what to expect at this stage, so hearing from the vets like Pugsy really helps. Thanks!

If its any consolation:

Yesterday I wound up staying for a double shift at work (I'm a CNA), so I got home at 2215 and had to get to bed so I could get up for my regular day shift today -- alarm goes off at 0415. I woke up at 0245 instead, kept the machine on until I dozed back off at 0345, and awoke again at 0405. My AHI was as low as ever (0.7) when I awoke but I slept like shit and thus struggled ALL DAY LONG with fatigue.