Need some support (may be a bit off topic)

When I occaisionaly felt those good vibrations, as was suggested I thought it was an earthquake or a train passing nearby or ??.
Latter I was diagnosed with AFib and was bless with a Holter Monitor on more than one occasion. It seems I have been confirmed to have aln=most constant AFib although I seldom notice it.

I would also suggest adding a recording Pulse oximeter to your arsenal so you can monitor a few more data points.

You mention you take magnesium. Are you aware it needs to be ballanced with calcium, vitamin D and a few other cofactors to be effective?
have you had you vitamin D level checked recently? It would seem low Vit D is epedemic in th US and many other countries.

Thanks jencat and bwexler. I'm aware of the Mag, VitD, Calcium thing. You'll hear different things from different experts. One Magnesium expert says that the ratio of Mag to Calcium should be more like 2:1 rather than some recommendations which say 1:1 or even 1:2. Right now I'm not taking any calcium supplements, but I do get some calcium from the fortified almond milk I drink. I also know that Vit D metabolism uses up Magnesium. Not too long ago I tried supplementing with around 6,000 IUs of Vit D and started feeling pretty bad. Maybe because my magnesium was being used up. I've stopped Vit D supplements for now and am getting my Vit D level checked. Yes, most people are now deficient in Vit D, but opinions vary about how much supplementation is healthy or safe. One doctor (Dr Gominak) believes that low Vit D is at the root of most sleep disorders, migraines, and other conditions.

Last night was pretty bad. I'll try to get the charts posted today.

Thanks.

-b

OK. Here's my first attempt at a screenshot. Please let me know if I didn't include the right information. This data is from last night which was a particularly bad night for me. I couldn't fall asleep until about 2 AM and I think I woke up with one of my "events" about every hour. I'm pretty sure I had events at 3 AM and 4 AM. I can't say for sure how much time I was awake, but it seemed like a lot. This is far fewer over all events than I've seen on previous nights. I can see my respiration rate drop down at around 3 AM and 4 AM so maybe that's significant?

-b

So to be clear..you think you were awake until at least that first break in therapy where the machine was turned off and then back on around 1:40 AM? So that entire first sleep session you were awake??

The respiration rate graph...while it looks like a lot of variations...that's not all that unusual.
Your leak rate graph is absent. Was it very exciting?
Your pressure graph only shows the normal pressure probes (those spikey things are the pressure increasing slightly to test the airway)...they look more exciting and bigger than they really are because the pressure graph scale is zoomed in a lot.
Your 6 cm starting pressure never really changes beyond the normal pressure probes to 7.5 cm...which is the normal 1.5 cm pressure increase that is used for pressure probes.
Same thing about the respiration rate...zoomed in tight makes mountains out of mole hills.
We see the mountains out of mole hills often especially with the leak graph.

What do you mean "bad night"? Difficulty falling asleep or the unknown "events" that seem to wake you in a panic or both.
Insomnia is a nasty little demon...both the sleep onset and sleep maintenance (staying asleep).

Unfortunately I don't see anything standing out on this report that is screaming "fix me". Whatever issues you may have with falling asleep and staying asleep...I don't see anything that we maybe could blame it on in this report unless the leak is an issue but I have my doubts if you leak line will help out much.

For future images of your reports...be sure to include the leak graph and on the left side switch over to the Details tab instead of the Events tab. We can't see overall AHI and category of event breakdown when using the Events tab.
Though I can tell with a rough estimate showing the events that were flagged and the hours recorded that the AHI isn't all that high...plus if that first session before the therapy break was when you were for sure awake...those don't count anyway. Awake events are removed from the equation.

You may classify last night as a "bad" night in terms of insomnia issues and whatever it is that is causing you to wake in sort of a panic...but it isn't apparent on this report. Unfortunately the report isn't particularly helpful. The machine doesn't know if you are awake or not. It is limited to offering only the data that it collects and even that is sometimes difficult to evaluate. Sometimes we get lucky and something stands out but I don't see it here.

Hi Pugsy,

Yes, I think I was awake for the entire first sleep session. There may have been one point where I almost nodded off for a second, but I can't be sure.

By "bad night" I mean numerous waking/anxiety events where the anxiety was particularly high to the point of almost being painful. Sleep onset problems don't bother me very much as compared to that. For all I know, the sleep onset problems were because I was worrying about being able to figure out at what times the events happen so that I could create a good report... The feeling I get when I'm woken up like this is hard to describe. I don't feel particularly breathless (I've never woken up gasping for air for example), but the panic is really hard to take. And I've never been subject to any sort of anxiety/panic attacks during the day.

Right, I wasn't particularly worried about the pressure graph. And the leak graph reported a very low leak rate which is why I didn't include it. I guess I thought the remarkable points on the respiration rate graph were the significant drops at around 3 AM and 4 AM which is when I think I had two of my events. For example, the 4AM drop starts around 3:50AM around 20 and drops to about 9 by 4AM. I woke up somewhere in that 10 minute period.

Here's a zoomed in shot showing the drops at around 3AM and 4AM (I've also included the details tab and leak graph). But in your opinion, those are not significant? Maybe I'm just hyper-sensitive for some reason and I react to events that others might sleep through.



Thanks again for your help.

-b

You are correct...your leak graph is boring. I suspected it would be though.

I don't know how much we can infer from the drops in respiration...or even if we can infer anything..the range you are seeing is within normal limits.

You might start keeping a detailed log if you can.
When you wake up with one of those panic times...if you have the presence of mind go ahead and turn the machine off and right back on that way you will have a definite marker to look at for what might have happened right before you woke up.
Just a quick turn off and back on again will show up as a small break in the therapy line and help you isolate the time frame involved without having to look at the clock and remember the time it happened.

Respiration and pulse rate both have wide ranges of normal so it's difficult to infer much from those normal variations.
You might with time and experience and using the on/off button to delineate the exact time you wake up so you can for sure look at what was going on proceeding the wake up might show some sort of pattern...but what to do about it IF you even can spot something is going to be limited because we have no way to know the why.
Since the machine can't give us even certain sleep times...it can't give us sleep stages and maybe what you are experiencing is relate to maybe REM stage sleep. We can infer general time frames where REM is most likely to occur but can't know we exact certainty like they do in a sleep lab setting.

I was kinda hoping we would see a couple big ugly apnea clusters going on but unless you see some on other reports...I don't think that sleep apnea events are on the suspect list.

Good advice Pugsy. Thanks once again. I'll get some more data and see what I can figure out.

-b