hypopnea just as bad as apnea?

According to my sleep study I have an AHI of 16. I was surprised that I have apnea at all as my wife never heard me snoring all the time, but never heard me stop breathing. I recorded many nights with an audio recorder and could not identify breathing stops either.

According to my sleep study, 85% of my AHI are hypoapneas with an average duration of 110 seconds. This would mean that 50% of the time my airways are blocked more than 50%. The Flow limitation index indicates that I have some flow limitation more than 90% of the time.

Are hypoaneas with a longer duration just as bad as complete apneas with a shorter duration? I heard somebody say that hypoapneas could not explain my fatigue and brainfog.

I have a cpap device since yesterday and for the first night since years I did not snore at all! Still have to get used to the hose, mask etc. but think I will cope. Would be great if also the fatigue and brainfog would reduce over time.

anton69 wrote:According to my sleep study I have an AHI of 16. I was surprised that I have apnea at all as my wife never heard me snoring all the time, but never heard me stop breathing. I recorded many nights with an audio recorder and could not identify breathing stops either.

According to my sleep study, 85% of my AHI are hypoapneas with an average duration of 110 seconds. This would mean that 50% of the time my airways are blocked more than 50%. The Flow limitation index indicates that I have some flow limitation more than 90% of the time.

Are hypoaneas with a longer duration just as bad as complete apneas with a shorter duration? I heard somebody say that hypoapneas could not explain my fatigue and brainfog.

I have a cpap device since yesterday and for the first night since years I did not snore at all! Still have to get used to the hose, mask etc. but think I will cope. Would be great if also the fatigue and brainfog would reduce over time.

I'm also one of those types who only experiences hypnoapneas. Hypoapneas can definitely disturb your sleep and cause brain fog and fatigue and all the symptoms of sleep apnea. Regardless of what other people say. At the very least it causes arousals. The hypnoapneas cause me to drop into 87 and lower during REM sleep.

Actually it is also apnea, just one type of it, caused by not being signaled to breath. The obstructive, is the closing or restriction of the airway. Both can be bad, depending on how often they happen, how long they last. They can cause arrosals, low O2 levels, unwanted wear and tear on your whole body. The length of each event sets how much damage is done, longer being more damage. Besides causing damage, they can prevent normal body repair functions from being done. Jim

I tend to have a lot of these as well. Will pressure adjustments help to relieve them?

"Forgetting to breathe" is normally thought of as a central apnea and not hyponea.
Hyponeas are normally thought of as obstructive in nature...the airway is partially blocked by airway tissue.
While hyponeas can be central in nature but most of the time I think they are usually classified as "obstructive" and generally when something is obstructive in nature (related to airway tissues collapsing and partially or fully blocking the airway and causing a reduction in air flow) then a little more pressure is usually what is used to hold the airway open better.

Definitions can be found here....minimum of 10 seconds and a certain amount of flow reduction is what determines the classification
http://sleepyhead.sourceforge.net/wiki/ ... p/Glossary

Hyponeas can be bad...especially if a person has a truckload of them back to back.

Thanks Pugsy. I'm not sure what defines a truckload, but it looks like I will have anywhere from 6-12 or so a night. usually spaced out, but occasionally 4 or 5 clustered together. Are flow limitations as bad? I would say I have a lot of those.

The idea of "central" hypopnea seems to be becoming more accepted by the medical community.

As for the degree of damage, it seems obvious that, in general, hypopneas are less damaging than full apnea of the same duration, but there doesn't seem to be a good way to weigh the damage of one vs. the other.

Hypopneas could definitely explain fatigue and brain fog. If nothing else, you could basically be waking up at least partially every 4 minutes to get your AHI of 16.

See what happens with your CPAP. Don't worry too much about the results the first week or so. Check your results with SleepyHead.

Good luck.

Tdub210 wrote: I'm not sure what defines a truckload, but it looks like I will have anywhere from 6-12 or so a night. usually spaced out, but occasionally 4 or 5 clustered together. Are flow limitations as bad?

"Truckload" can vary but in general very dense clusters of any sort of event back to back (like every minute for 15 minutes) for a period of time and we also have to factor in how long they last in duration....10 to 15 seconds isn't nearly as much of a problem as 45 seconds.

Flow limitations are air flow reductions that don't meet hyponea criteria (either for duration or % of redution) so again how many are we talking about and how long are they lasting and since they are a potential factor in sleep disruptions ...how is our sleep quality.

The reason we have all these various flags or named events of some sort is because they can all mess with our sleep along with the expected O2 relationship & risks. They are all important and to some people probably more important than others.
Example...Someone with UARS is likely going to have a low AHI but might have an elevated Flow limitation/reduction and those reductions are causing arousals and messing with sleep.
They might not have oxygen desat problem and their AHI may not be all that exciting but they might be having 30 arousals an hour from flow limitations and they sleep crappy and feel crappy.

Flow limitation evaluation when everything else looks good...that is where clinical correlation comes into the picture.

I don't suffer from hip-hop-neas, but I do have ir-reggae-ular breathing.

My apologies in advance.