Asking a huge favour!

Arlene1963 wrote:The image is too small to see, and is not clickable.

reolhlains wrote:Hi all!
I'm wondering if I can please ask for some more help/advice.
Things were going great until about two weeks ago, when I noticed my AHI was right down to near zero. I hoped it would be a random night, but unfortunately it hasn't really improved and I'm feeling very [yawns] tired again!
Things were great when my AHI was in the 1s - it generally sat at about 1.9ish - but I've been down below 0.8 for the last couple of weeks.
Suspecting it may be caused by mouth breathing, I taped my mouth tight shut last night. I'd be surprised if it would have been possible to breath freely through my mouth (not easily anyway), but I still feel rubbish today (and my AHI was 0.5).
I've posted the sleepyhead dump below and wonder if you would mind please having a look and see if it says anything useful.
While messaging - how often should I be changing the nose part of the mask and the air filter.
Thanks a million

xxyzx wrote:i was going to post this as a new thread to explain it
and then you asked

but here is one possibility

woke up today to go to bathroom
as i went back to sleep i heard teh neighbors radio upstairs

did i wake up first and need to go
or did needing to go wake me up?

whichever my sleep was disturbed by something other than apnea

happened again this morning
only this time it was the guy upstairs running the shower first
then i realised i should use the bathroom

these made me realise that there is a LOT of noise in an apt that disturbs sleep
the a/c compressors outside are very noisy
i have almost learned to ignore them and not wake up
ditto for the footsteps above me but not the vacuum cleaner

loud talkers in the hallway or outside the building
radio tv stereo dishwashers washer/dryer and running water full on to fill the tub are all disturbing
and many of the neighbors have schedules that do not agree with other people so the noise will wake someone

i measured 55db for the tub filling
that is normal conversation level and too loud for sleeping

the noise from the bipap is nothing and easily ignored compared to the other sounds imposed on us

but i suspect that if you have problems there may be outside events that are disturbing your sleep such as noise

D.H. wrote:There's no such thing as an AHI being too low! Zero is fine, and negative is impossible!

If you really are mouth breathing, your mouth would be very dry, given that you're wearing a nasal mask!

I would look for other reason for your tiredness, especially additional sleep disorders.

In addition, what else may have changed? For instance, new bed or bedding, new residence, new paint, carpet, or wallpaper, new job, new situation on old job, etc.?

BTW, you live in the land where CPAP was invented!

Robear wrote:I don't understand the problem. I thought the goal was to lower AHI as much as possible. In fact, my doctor & various other sources, have indicated that less than 5 was considered "no sleep apnea". My highest AHI since 1/1/17 was 2.5 and average is 0.9. Once it was even 0.0. I continue to use cpap because I am sleeping more soundly, awaken more rested & am not nearly as tired during the day (altho' I still do fall asleep reading sometimes).

Isn't low AHI a good thing?

reolhlains wrote:Things were going great until about two weeks ago, when I noticed my AHI was right down to near zero.

reolhlains wrote:Suspecting it may be caused by mouth breathing,

reolhlains wrote:how often should I be changing the nose part of the mask and the air filter.

LSAT wrote:

xxyzx wrote:i was going to post this as a new thread to explain it
and then you asked

but here is one possibility

woke up today to go to bathroom
as i went back to sleep i heard teh neighbors radio upstairs

did i wake up first and need to go
or did needing to go wake me up?

whichever my sleep was disturbed by something other than apnea

happened again this morning
only this time it was the guy upstairs running the shower first
then i realised i should use the bathroom

these made me realise that there is a LOT of noise in an apt that disturbs sleep
the a/c compressors outside are very noisy
i have almost learned to ignore them and not wake up
ditto for the footsteps above me but not the vacuum cleaner

loud talkers in the hallway or outside the building
radio tv stereo dishwashers washer/dryer and running water full on to fill the tub are all disturbing
and many of the neighbors have schedules that do not agree with other people so the noise will wake someone

i measured 55db for the tub filling
that is normal conversation level and too loud for sleeping

the noise from the bipap is nothing and easily ignored compared to the other sounds imposed on us

but i suspect that if you have problems there may be outside events that are disturbing your sleep such as noise

What does this have to do with the OP's question?

LSAT wrote:You think that your AHI dropped because you started to mouth breathe???????

D.H. wrote:BTW, you live in the land where CPAP was invented!

D.H. wrote:There's no such thing as an AHI being too low! Zero is fine, and negative is impossible!

If you really are mouth breathing, your mouth would be very dry, given that you're wearing a nasal mask!

D.H. wrote:I would look for other reason for your tiredness, especially additional sleep disorders.

palerider wrote:you may be able to see mouth breathing, if you zoom in on the flow trace to where you can see individual breaths, if you search on the forum, Jay has a couple of threads where he discusses this, with flow examples

reolhlains wrote:Obviously I want a low AHI, but I know whether the machine managed to do it's job as soon as I wake up. Yesterday, after the photo I posted, I felt awful- exactly like pre-cpap days. I know the AHI of 0.5 can't be right.