First night SleepyHead data - can anyone help?

library lady wrote:I don't use Encore so I don't know how to interpret it, but I can tell that you had excessive leaking most of the time, and that will impact your therapy. I don't know anything about your mask either as I use a full-face mask. Hopefully someone will come along who can help you determine what's going on and what to do about the leaking... I don't know if mask liners can be used with the Wisp, which I think I remember is what you are using, but in many cases a liner can be used to minimize the effects of leaks.

Thanks, I may look into the liners if the leaking keeps up.

SleepDisturbed wrote:
Getting back to you , from what is on the report it looks pretty decent. Most important, did you get some good sleep? If you can learn to sleep with the alien strapped to your face, the numbers above would suggest that you would get effective treatment. However, you need to check over a period of weeks at least, to see how things are going!

Actually, no. I felt pretty crappy this morning, as I do every morning. Sigh.

yaconsult wrote: You only had 5 minutes in large leak which was only 1% of the night. Probably slightly less than 1% so it rounded down to 0 for the internal display. It looks like you have a good mask fit.

Ah, okay. Thank you!

There may have been one tiny short lived episode of large leak and it wasn't enough to register as a % on the machine.
See that tiny light spot on the green bar on the top of the leak graph? Looks like just shortly past the 12 mark?
That's the only large leak you had...the more solid brighter green is normal mask fit without large leak.

This is the way Encore shows it...now SleepyHead would only show the short time in large leak on the bar graph on its events graph (when you finally get SH working).

Not enough large leak to worry about last night.
Your total leak line does sort of wander all over the place though...at fixed pressures it would maybe be more stable so there is some leaking going on somewhere but if you are sleeping soundly and the leaks aren't disturbing your sleep...they sure aren't hurting your therapy and I wouldn't worry about them.
Now if you wake up often because of mask leaks and having to fiddle with the mask...then yeah...need to work on it but only because they are disturbing sleep.
They aren't bad enough to negatively impact your therapy or the machine's ability to sense and report.

Well, some nights I do wake up numerous times, and when I do it's usually because my mouth is dry, not necessarily to mess with the actual straps or anything. But maybe the fit is part of the issue?

library lady wrote:I don't use Encore so I don't know how to interpret it, but I can tell that you had excessive leaking most of the time, and that will impact your therapy.

Encore shows the large leak a bit different than SH.
With Encore the bright green solid line actually means acceptable mask fit despite it being up on that LL line (see the legend for the color meanings) and a very pale green for the actual time in large leak...which in this situation is minimal and nothing to worry about in terms of therapy effectiveness or machine accuracy..

Now OP isn't feeling so great though...so maybe some improvements and tweaking need to be looked at.

So..LibbyLou..some questions.
How many hours of sleep are you averaging?
Are those hours of sleep fragmented by any wake ups? If so approx how many and any idea why?
Do you take any meds of any kind? If so, what?

In terms of leak...if they are waking you up then we need to fix them or do something different because anything that wakes us up is unwanted.

LibbyLou wrote:Well, some nights I do wake up numerous times, and when I do it's usually because my mouth is dry, not necessarily to mess with the actual straps or anything. But maybe the fit is part of the issue?

Orajel seems to be pretty popular around here for dry mouth prevention: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JCBH70 but make sure you get the dry mouth version as they have many variations.

Regarding how you feel after your first night, please be reassured that for most people it takes time for the body to adjust to the therapy. For a first night, You did very well. Give it some time.

Pugsy wrote: Encore shows the large leak a bit different than SH.
With Encore the bright green solid line actually means acceptable mask fit despite it being up on that LL line (see the legend for the color meanings) and a very pale green for the actual time in large leak...which in this situation is minimal and nothing to worry about in terms of therapy effectiveness or machine accuracy..

Thanks for explaining that.

Now OP isn't feeling so great though...so maybe some improvements and tweaking need to be looked at.

So..LibbyLou..some questions.
How many hours of sleep are you averaging?
Are those hours of sleep fragmented by any wake ups? If so approx how many and any idea why?
Do you take any meds of any kind? If so, what?

In terms of leak...if they are waking you up then we need to fix them or do something different because anything that wakes us up is unwanted.

I probably average around 7 hours or so, I would say. Not sure exactly how many wake ups (I don't always remember them apparently, judging by my sleep study), but when I do since I've been on CPAP, it's normally because of dry mouth. Or needing to pee. The only meds I'm on right now are Flonase and an iron supplement.

yaconsult wrote: Orajel seems to be pretty popular around here for dry mouth prevention: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JCBH70 but make sure you get the dry mouth version as they have many variations.

Regarding how you feel after your first night, please be reassured that for most people it takes time for the body to adjust to the therapy. For a first night, You did very well. Give it some time.

Thanks for the Orajel tip.

I've actually been on the CPAP for a month now, but was just switched to a data capable machine yesterday, so this is the first time I've been able to post a report.

I think some may have mistaken the machine for a Resmed machine - Resmed machines report unintentional leak and numbers over 24 are considered large leaks. Respironics machines report total leaks and the leaks that show on your graph wouldn't be considered large leaks (except for the 5 minute period that people are mentioning).

I'm not sure what time our power went out or for how long it was out last night - does anyone know how that is reported in the data?

How are you feeling in the morning? Your numbers are good, but the acid test is how you feel.

Nick Danger wrote:How are you feeling in the morning? Your numbers are good, but the acid test is how you feel.

Crappy! Honestly. I still feel as if I barely slept, and like I've been run over repeatedly all night long.

You're in good hands with Pugsy. The two of you will probably figure out how to improve things! Some of us took longer than a month to feel better, while others seemed to have a miracle moment the first time they slept with the machine - this is all so individual.

LibbyLou wrote:I'm not sure what time our power went out or for how long it was out last night - does anyone know how that is reported in the data?

It will show as a gap in the pressure graph. Do an experiment tonight to become familiar with it. Start using your machine as usual, then reach over and turn it off briefly then turn it back on again. You will see a gap in the data for the period that it was off. But note that since you are using the ramp, it restarts the ramp every time the machine starts up. Many people turn the ramp off once they get used to the therapy.

The other thing I wonder about, is that my AHI during my sleep study was zero. Now last night it was 2. Now I wonder what it has been for the past month before I was able to see the data. Not sure what that means, if anything.

This isn't the OPs first night on CPAP...it's the first night with a data capable machine...she had a brick for a little while (I forgot how long)

If the SD card had 2 machine's data on it...it shouldn't have messed up Sleepyhead like that....but hey, maybe it did but I would still remove SH and put it back on the computer first.
I have had as many as 3 different machines on the SD card with various PR S1 machines and SH handled it perfectly.

To Libby...don't worry about the SD card showing 100% available...it's big and the data files are very small in comparison and it will take weeks of data to move it much off of 100% available.
If you go into the SD card itself...you will see the data files and folders.
If you go into the P Series main folder there is a sub folder that has P and a long number after it. If you see two of these folders with different numbers it means the old machine data is on the machine because that is the Pserialnumber folder(s).

Your supplier should have already pulled any compliance usage data up to the point of the swap...but I would confirm with them before I go removing any old machine Pserial number folders...just in case.

Or you can simply get another new SD card...cheap generic will work just fine...stick it in the PR S1 and the machine will write the data to that card and you lose only 1 data file for flow rate graphs and you already have it in Encore anyway.
Save the old card as it is if the prior machine data is on it...until you are sure it is no longer needed.

As to why you aren't feeling so great...the only thing that stands out to me at this point is maybe the leak...while they aren't horrible in terms of affecting therapy...it is possible they are bad enough to impact sleep quality by causing low level arousals that you may or may not remember. It is probably the first thing I would look at if it were me and we can't blame meds or other health issues and that's why I ask about meds and hours of sleep in general.
The dry mouth means a little mouth breathing...and it doesn't always take a lot of mouth breathing to dry the mouth out...been there and done that myself. Dry mouth itself can disturb sleep.

Oh...if the power goes out there will be an easily seen break in the therapy data lines on all graphs.
No different than turning the machine off and back on again. Easy to spot.

Nick Danger wrote:You're in good hands with Pugsy. The two of you will probably figure out how to improve things! Some of us took longer than a month to feel better, while others seemed to have a miracle moment the first time they slept with the machine - this is all so individual.

Thank you, I hope something good happens soon!

yaconsult wrote: It will show as a gap in the pressure graph. Do an experiment tonight to become familiar with it. Start using your machine as usual, then reach over and turn it off briefly then turn it back on again. You will see a gap in the data for the period that it was off. But note that since you are using the ramp, it restarts the ramp every time the machine starts up. Many people turn the ramp off once they get used to the therapy.

Thanks!