Sp02% and apnea events

Saw my sleep doc today. I had a sleep test a six weeks ago; I asked him today for a copy of the test. He printed about half of it for me (half a loaf is better than none I guess). I was also a bit perturbed that he had not acquired the latest data from my APAP before seeing me, opting to have the DME download it and send it to him only after I requested that he do that, during today's visit.

I told him I was aware of what sort of events I was having at home due to SH, and he asked me if I had that data with me, which I did not because I did not want to have the card out of the machine at the exact moment he called the DME for a download. Maybe next time I will copy it to a flash drive first. At least he did not scoff and dismiss SH as worthless out of hand, which I know is not unheard of.

I had about 20 events in 6+ hours, so I interpret that as just over a AHI of 3; there is no indication what sort of events these are, just that they fell into a couple of different categories, most during REM. My normal AHI has been just under 3, typically. I was on APAP for the entire test; was told there would be titration done.

But I did get some info I had not had before with SH, regarding Sp02. It appears that I was consistently well above 92%, really only dipping that low in the presence of SA events. How do we interpret this? Is this pretty normal? Or does it possibly indicate something else?

If the apnea event times coincide or line up on the graphs with SPO2 drops, this would be typical. Personally, I don't see SPO2 desats on short events, but do on longer events. Basically you need to import the data into a program such as Sleepyhead to know whats going on.

You do not need to have the card in your (notebook?) computer to view SH data. Once you plug the card into the computer and import it, it makes a local copy.

If you want to know about spO2, consider buying your own recording pulse oximeter, wear it at night, and import the data into SH.

I am typically seeing and AHI range of 0.25 to 3 with no desats below 89%. I typically see a dozen or so events that technically qualify as a desat (4% drop) but most of them are preceded by an increase in spO2 level (deep breath). I do not worry about them.

Without my machine, I typically see hundreds of desats lasting 45 or more seconds that go from 95% to the low 80's or even high 70's.

coolbranch wrote:If the apnea event times coincide or line up on the graphs with SPO2 drops, this would be typical. Personally, I don't see SPO2 desats on short events, but do on longer events. Basically you need to import the data into a program such as Sleepyhead to know whats going on.

I have SH, which was mentioned in the original post at least twice. But there is no information regarding 02 desats in SH at all, at least with my machine. That is why I termed it "new information".

But from what you are saying, (and they do indeed coincide with events; the lowest desat coincided with a cluster) this is to be expected.