Aircurve leak rate question in sleepyhead

I finally checked the sleepy head daily data. My AHI are all under 2. But the Leak rate sometimes are large number, the max even reach 88.8. From the myair, the leak is no more than 24/ml. So not sure what exactly 88.8 means in the sleepy head data. I have some unclassified apnea, googled it, it says: "If an apnea occurs when the unintended Leak is 30 Liter/minute or higher then the machine will not attempt to classify it as central or as obstructive and names it an unclassified apnea". So do I need to worry about the leak rate I have? I wake up several times at night, usually I take off the mask, and turn off the machine, and put it back on, and turn on the machine. Does the time when I take the mask off before I turn off the machine also consider "leak" time? Is the large number something to do with that too?

mibbim wrote: So do I need to worry about the leak rate I have?

yes

Hello, I read the manual again, but it doesn't really indicate the question I have. What is the leak rate number needs to be consider from the sleepy head software? My AHI is pretty low but the max of the leak rate has been seen as 88.8 once. Also saw some non-classified apnea. So what step need to do to prevent that?

mibbim wrote:Hello, I read the manual again, but it doesn't really indicate the question I have. What is the leak rate number needs to be consider from the sleepy head software? My AHI is pretty low but the max of the leak rate has been seen as 88.8 once. Also saw some non-classified apnea. So what step need to do to prevent that?

with the p10 there's not a lot of adjustment, if it's been too long since you replaced the strap, then it might be too lose, or you might be opening your mouth and letting all the air escape, do you wake up with a very dry mouth often?

if you haven't washed the strap in hot water lately, I suggest that, the hot water causes it to shrink.

mibbim wrote:I finally checked the sleepy head daily data. My AHI are all under 2. But the Leak rate sometimes are large number, the max even reach 88.8. From the myair, the leak is no more than 24/ml. So not sure what exactly 88.8 means in the sleepy head data. I have some unclassified apnea, googled it, it says: "If an apnea occurs when the unintended Leak is 30 Liter/minute or higher then the machine will not attempt to classify it as central or as obstructive and names it an unclassified apnea". So do I need to worry about the leak rate I have? I wake up several times at night, usually I take off the mask, and turn off the machine, and put it back on, and turn on the machine. Does the time when I take the mask off before I turn off the machine also consider "leak" time? Is the large number something to do with that too?

A quick answer since hubby and I are getting ready to hit the road:

The amount of time your leak rate is over 24 L/min is very important. If we're talking about 15 minutes total time spent in Large Leak territory on a night where you use the machine for 6 hours, it's probably not too important. If we're talking about 2 hours total time spent in Large Leak territory, then it most likely is very important.

The maximum leak rate is usually not particularly critical since it can be influenced by a very short lived, super large leak triggered by such things as intentionally breaking the mask seal to scratch your nose. The 95% leak rate and the median leak rate, however, are both very important in determining whether your official large leaks are enough to worry about. In general, if the 95% leak rate is well below the 24 L/min "Resmed red line", then your large leaks are not long enough to affect the overall efficacy of your therapy. (Whether they're disturbing enough to your sleep to make them worth fixing is an entirely different story.) If the median leak rate is close to or above the 24 L/min red line, then the leaks most likely are effecting the efficacy of your therapy and need to be addressed even if they're not waking you up.

The easiest answer to whether the time when you take the mask off, but the machine is still on is affecting your leak rates is to look at when those leak rates occur relative to the times you turn the machine off. If the leak rate zooms way up right before you turn the machine off, then the answer is yes, that's affecting the leak rate. If not, then the answer is no, it's not affecting the leak rate.

mibbim wrote:not sure what exactly 88.8 means in the sleepy head data

It means you hit a really big massive leak for at least a small segment of time during the night. Could maybe be nothing more than a refitting of the mask though and I wouldn't worry about the max leak number unless I saw the leak pegged out at 80 L/min for a prolonged period of time.

MyAir reports the 95% leak number and all that is/means is for 95% of the night you were at OR BELOW that number. The "or below" part of the definition is real important.
If your 95% numbers are below 24 L/min...that means 5% of the night it was above it but we can't tell how far above it things went.
I wouldn't worry about 5% of the night being above 24 L/min no matter how high it went as long as I slept through the leaks.
5% of 7 hours of sleep is 21 minutes and that isn't the end of the world in my book.

From my personal experience with ResMed bilevel and leaks and the machines ability to record.
from 24 to 30 L/min leak the machine seem to flagged normally without issues
from 30 to 35 L/min leak the machine seemed to give me "unknown" apneas where right before I was seeing OAs flagged...so I assume that the machine could sense something was happening but couldn't decide what to call it
from 35 L/min and higher....I saw blank spaces where there were flagged unknown events when the leak was just a little less so I assume that over 35 L/min the machine couldn't sense anything in terms of events. Now I suppose nothing could have happened but since 30 minutes prior to the blank space I was seeing "unknown" event flags I have to assume the worst.

Bear in mind the overall AHI probably isn't impacted all that much even if a person goes well past 35 L/min large leak as long as the duration of the really big leak is not prolonged. If you spent 15 minutes at 40 L/min large leak the AHI is only questionable during the period of large leak...so it's unlikely to impact the overall average all that much. Now if a person spends half the night at 40 L/min...then of course the AHI is probably not accurate.

You all want to see an ugly leak report? (This isn't the night that I was referring to above with my examples....so don't look in this one for that stuff.)
I still got Mr Smiley face since I didn't hit 30% of the night in big leak.
And the 95% number was 30 L/min so at OR BELOW 30 L/min for 95% of the night. For the most part the AHI is accurate or close enough.
BTW...this was mask movement leaking. I was trying a new mask and it was leaky and to 100% rule out mouth breathing I taped for this night.....Plus the leaks woke me up several times.
If the leaks hadn't woke me up I don't know that I would have worried much about them despite how ugly the report was because the AHI wasn't probably too far off and I had a lot of wiggle room in terms of AHI. This was the Brevida mask experiment. Wasn't long after this I abandoned that experiment. I have an issue with the back strap and may try to revisit the Brevida later and fix the back strap issue.