remaining central vs. obstructive apneas

I finally have my full sleep study results and data from my first few weeks of using a CPAP. My original study showed mostly obstructive but mixed with some central apnea. On the CPAP, the obstructive apneas and hypopneas have virtually gone away (yay!) but my central ones seem to remain. My AHI was 5.3, with the centrals comprising 4.6 of that. How do you lower the central number? Does a higher pressure make sense, given that it's brain-related? A different kind of machine? Wait it out? Or is there nothing further that can be done?

And one other thing that strikes me... during the initial sleep study, of the 158 apneas/hypopneas, nearly all were hypopneas, and only 10 were central apneas during the entire duration of the study. And now I'm getting roughly five centrals per hour?!? That doesn't seem like a good thing.

Hi wolewyck

From what I understand, which is by no means complete, centrals can be increased by too high a pressure.

So we have to find a balance that keeps our OSA events low, whilst not increasing our centrals.

This should not be too difficult to do.

Then we have to either accept the centrals still remaining, or loof for some way of reducing them. Currently I do not know of any way of doing that.

My Sandman includes centrals in my total AHi, but I still usually get an AHi of 2.0 to 3.0.

For me, this is probably as good as I can get, with an OSA event number often below 2.0.

Hope this helps, but above is only personal thoughts, not guaranteed wisdom.

cheers

Mars