CPAPtalk.com

Miko, this is most interesting...

I now know personally several people using CPAP and they told me that their AHI is zero or close to zero. Of course, I doubted them. But, when I went into their menu of their cpap, I seen this was indeed the case. The same goes with my DME who also uses CPAP and my GP.

Miko, are you speaking of seeing for yourself an AHI figure shown in the little window on top of their machines? What CPAP machines were they using? I'm not arguing...I'm just very interested in how the different types of machines work, and what kind of data various machines can show. What brand/model of CPAP's were they using?

SWS- Something Muck and I have noticed on the Remstar Auto w/Cflex. When it is busy with a lot of snores, Hypopnea and occasionally Apneas "slip by". Or is it scoring these events incorrectly?

BTW, my AHI problem was due to too much pressure on my nose from my mask. Actually watched the little video that came with my ultra mirage and got it to seal without cranking it down (which caused pressure on my nose) Range is now 8 - 16 with AHI of 4. I thought initially it was pressure related (which it kinda was cause I was trying to stop leaks) but in fact was mask placement... So much for following the sleep tech's instructions...

Rested gal,

You’re completely right when you say:

rested gal wrote:I think it's important to look at the Encore table chart to see just how much of your night was spent at pressures much, much lower than the highlighted "90%" number. And then consider the tradeoffs. Upping the lower pressure to essentially what you'd be on if you had a straight cpap loses a lot of the benefits of spending a good part of the night at lower pressures with an autopap. However that could be a good tradeoff for some people. I think each individual would have to decide that based on how he/she feels..

I think the reason I’m fiddling around trying to get the lowest possible AHI is that I’m still tired all the time due to (I hope) a large sleep debt (3 weeks on cpap so far), although I have recently noticed some improvement . If I’d cleared my sleep debt I would probably notice that there is no difference to how I feel between the AHI’s I mentioned. I would say though that at a base pressure of 4-5 my AHI was too high to leave where it was – going up to 8.6 (13 one Saturday), but I’m still just guessing. That’s what’s so great about autopaps of course – the ability to set the pressure range.

Gregg

Mikesus wrote:SWS- Something Muck and I have noticed on the Remstar Auto w/Cflex. When it is busy with a lot of snores, Hypopnea and occasionally Apneas "slip by". Or is it scoring these events incorrectly?

There are potentially several factors that might account for this shortcoming in my opinion. Derek brought up response time as a possibility with respect to any therapeutic pressure's rate of change finally reaching a crucial (responsive treatment) pressure on time. You brought up response time that kind of hinted at real-time processing shortcomings. I believe the response issue mentioned by Derek to be a valid concern for "fast and heavy" incipient obstructions. I hope real-time processing resources are not an issue for the RemStar, since I believe that particular design shortcoming could have been easily avoided. Leaks can, indeed, factor in as well. Also, pattern recognition with respect to predicting sleep-event sequencing can get much "dicier" if a patient's sleep event distribution becomes more dense and varied in my opinion.

BTW, my AHI problem was due to too much pressure on my nose from my mask. Actually watched the little video that came with my ultra mirage and got it to seal without cranking it down (which caused pressure on my nose) Range is now 8 - 16 with AHI of 4. I thought initially it was pressure related (which it kinda was cause I was trying to stop leaks) but in fact was mask placement... So much for following the sleep tech's instructions...

Mike, that's definitely worth noting. Essentially you are telling us that poor mask placement can "pinch" nasal pasages---and that can result in the obstructions you were able to measure via your increase in AHI. That observation alone should be key for some CPAP users here. Thanks for bringing that up!

Hi RG & All,

I am thinking in the line of setting the pressure at 95%tile as minimum setting as overall treatment. The rest of the last 5%tile as last challenges will leave to the apap to hadle at 20cm at the highest pressure. I hope to reach belwo AHI of 5 as normal target. In statistic, I would love to reach 99.95%tile as perfect phenomeno. Belwo are the few questions.

1) Remstar autopap algorithm is this a stattic or dynymic algorithm?

2) What are the common practice to reach a good AHI?

3) By lossing weight will ones pressure reduces and hence AHI reduces?

4) Is the Remstar APAP sensing for apnea thru nose breathing?

5) Is there a machine for analysing sleep stages (what is it)?

6) By sensing thru breathing if ones nose block will it count in AHI?

7) If one nose block (let say right nose but the left nose is not block) what will it be impact?

8) Is the apap moving towards fuzzy logic for better treatment and responses?

9) I noticed that in sleep stages 3 and 4 are the main targets for real resting. Why not the cpap/apap manufacturers use this as main parameters for better monitoring tool?

10) I leave 1 last question for anyone to ask.

Thank you.

Best regards,
Mckooi

coolest thread ever! definitely made my day a lot easier, whew!