Dreamstation AHI much higher than previous CPAP

Gotcha, Sorry total noob at all this lol. Had no idea any of this even existed until about 5 hours ago. So thanks for your patience

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 15, 2020 6:19 pm

Well another brilliant idea that didn't pan out. I was thinking maybe that big leaks were hiding events on the System One.
But you aren't having any leak issues at all.

So...answer to the sleep quality question please...much awake time at all using mask and machine with the new DreamStation?

Yeah I woke up a few times each night on the new machine, and I noticed my mouth was dry when I woke up, but was able to go back to sleep pretty quickly. I watched a couple YouTube videos and was back asleep.

I'm going to go back to the PR System One tonight and for the next few nights until my new Dreamstation Auto Machine arrives. I'm spending $ like it's going out of style
But at least once the new machine gets here I can upload the data to OSCAR and maybe you shaolin monk masters of the sleep apnea can get to the bottom of what is going on. I really am amazed at the wealth of knowledge that's available from this forum after only browsing for a few hours.

The only thing I can think of is the new machine is flagging some awake breathing irregularities by mistake.
Watch the videos here
http://freecpapadvice.com/sleepyhead-free-software

This is why being able to see the kind of events as well and when they got flagged is so important.
Awake flagged events simply don't count except to point out that the sleep quality isn't go great. We can safely ignore awake flagged events but since we have zero way to know asleep or awake for sure we can't safely ignore anything.
This is why I hate the half assed bricks. When people run into a problem there's nothing available to really help sort out the problem so that a proper solution can be implemented. I don't like guessing.

While I suppose it wouldn't have been impossible that your System One machine was really ailing and it missed some events but that's not the way things work when a machine starts to get old and tired. Usually the machine will totally fail and not power up before it just loses sensing abilities.

I doubt the difference in Flex is the cause. The difference in the 2 settings is statistically insignificant but you could try turning Flex totally off on the DreamStation and see what happens.

My best guess...false positives from the known awake times getting flagged and falsely inflating the AHI.
Try to limit awake time with mask on as much as possible and see if the AHI goes down as your sleep quality improves.
Try turning off Flex on the off chance it is affecting something.

Respironics didn't change the sensing stuff when they changed models. They didn't make the DreamStation more sensitive per se.
Though I have seen several DreamStations with sensor malfunctions where they just flagged a lot of stuff that wasn't real. I suppose it wouldn't be impossible for you to have got one of those lemons. Unfortunately the other stuff like snores and Flow limitations that also got over scored with the faulty sensors aren't even recorded in the half assed brick. We have no way to know if there is a sensor malfunction or not.

I think the best guess....false positives screwing with the data making things look worse than they are.
It's a guess though.
If you can get to a point where you sleep soundly with minimal awake time on the machine then you will have eliminated one potential cause...and you might get an answer at that time.

I appreciate all the help pugsy! For real. Thanks. I'll have a new dreamstation in a few days that I can see if I possibly got a lemon. I agree that it's not like the system one just not picking up on stuff, because my readings have been pretty steady over the seven years when I looked at the OSCAR reports. I'll be able to replace with the new dreamstation and upload the data to OSCAR and see what's what. Thanks again! I'll report back any findings over the next few days.