sleep apnea severity

I recently had a sleep study done and have been informed by my doctor via phone that I have sleep dosorder. They want to schedule another test. I was informed that I had on average 18 episodes per hour and that my oxygen level was 88%. Where do these rates fall in terms of severity of sleep apnea? Are these levels at a point where treatment would result in significant improvement?

A sleep study measures both apneas and hypopneas. An apnea is a total cessation of breathing for 10 seconds or more. A hypopnea is a partial cessation of breathing (usually by half the airflow or more) accompanied by an arousal or an oxygen drop of 4 %. During the sleep study they count how many of these occur during the night.

They add the total apneas plus the total hypopneas and divide by the number of hours of sleep. That becomes the apnea/hypopnea index or AHI.

In your case the AHI is 18. As a possible example (numbers are made up to fit the answer!), you may have had 5.5 hours of sleep time. During that you had 40 apneas and 59 hypopneas. That would be 40 plus 59 == 99 events divided by 5.5 hours = 18 events per hour.

"normal" is considered to be anything under 5 per hour.

"mild" is considered to be anything 6-20 which is where you fall near the high side of mild

"moderate" is considered to be 21-40 (some say only to 30)

"severe" is considered to be anything greater than 40 per hour (some say 30).

This number is one measure of severity and the one most often used. It gets tempered a bit with the length of the apneas and the seriousness of your daytime symptoms. Oxygen desaturation can be a factor if it is really major.

I've known "mild" patients who were severely sleepy during the daytime and some severe patients who hardly showed any sleepiness. It varies by patient.

Your oxygen level should normally stay in the mid to upper 90's during sleep as well as during the daytime. A low point or even average oxygen level of 88% is really not that bad.

If you were sleepy enough or noisy enough that a sleep study was recommended the odds are pretty good that you will see improvement when using some form of PAP. Significant really depends on how bad you feel and how much better you feel when treated.

Keep in mind, too, that in general, apnea gets worse over time and as we gain weight. Untreated patients have higher risks of cardiovascular problems, too. And the quality of life for an untreated patient can really suck!

I would certainly recommend having the titration study and giving PAP a try. I was amazed at how much better I felt within just a few days. Not everyone feels that great that quickly as you can tell from posters here, but for some of us PAP has really been a miracle treatment and a drastic improvement for the better.

thanks for the reply to my question. This was all new to me and I had questions as to the severity of my results in comparison to others