Question About Random Increases in Pressure

Hi all,

Had my best night of sleep last night, but as I took a look at the data this morning I noticed that there were several pressure increases that could not be attributed to either events or leaks. There were several occasions where an event occurred within a few minutes of the pressure dropping back down. I've added a screenshot of one of those moments. Any thoughts?

Cheers!

The machine won't ever increase the pressure because of a leak.

The machine increases the pressure because of snores, flow limitations, OAs or hyponeas.
So just because you don't see an OA or hyponea flagged nearby doesn't mean something else didn't trigger the increase.

The area that you zoomed in on...can you zoom out a bit and get me another screen shot?
You've got about a 4 minute timed segment...maybe do an 8 or 10 minute segment.
That looks like maybe just a normal test pressure probe but I can be sure at this level of zooming in.

So do the same general area but make it an 8 to 10 minute window.

Thank you for the response! Here is that same screenshot with an 8 min window, as well as another screenshot showing a random increase in pressure a little less than 10 mins prior.

Original (larger window):
Earlier: Cheers!

That appears to be a test pressure probe.
On the main overview it takes on a saw tooth looking pattern.
Sometimes you see a lot of them and sometimes you don't.
They are explained in the clinical/provider manual. Do you have that manual? If not you can request it via email from this place.
https://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap- ... tup-manual
You will often see them when nothing appears to be going on and occasionally you will see them when the machine has responded to something.

So nothing to be concerned about. Normal way for the machine to be working.

Test pressure probes are a 1.5 cm increase in pressure on the apap models (Bilevel models get a little more probe pressures) increase in the inhale pressure where the machine just decides to increase the pressure and sort of test things out. As with all pressure increases they are gradual...even these little test pressure probes.
It's part of the auto adjusting algorithm and usually when you see a lot of them it means you were sleeping pretty good but the machine just wants to experiment. When you don't see many of the spikes then usually it means you weren't sleeping so great.

Here's an example of one of my old ones. You can see the nice rhythmic saw tooth pattern and then I snored a bit and you see the first bigger jump in pressure and then it plateaued a bit and then gave me another test pressure probe.



Here's another example. Not mine but someone else's that I saved to educate because obviously he needs more maximum pressure available..

Thanks! I have requested a manual and look forward to educating myself some more.

Cheers!

ozviolinist wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 21, 2020 9:02 am

Hi all,

Had my best night of sleep last night, but as I took a look at the data this morning I noticed that there were several pressure increases that could not be attributed to either events or leaks.

There's no such thing as a random increase in pressure.

Pressure increases because of *some* event, never leaks.

Your machine does create pressure 'probes' when nothing is happening and you're breathing smoothly, almost as if it gets bored, that's what the spikes are.