O2 drop with CPAP

Can you expand the graph of o2 sat and heart rate? It would be interesting to see a minute or so around one of the dropouts.
Jim

NewToSleepApnea wrote: ↑

Sat May 23, 2020 9:37 pm

That’s the thing. My AHI is under 5 for the past week. Sometimes under 2 or 3.

It really should be under 2 all the time. (except maybe during those transition periods).

NewToSleepApnea wrote: ↑

Sat May 23, 2020 9:37 pm

But this only happens when I’m falling asleep. Not in the middle of the night. Sleep wake transitions.

A brief drop while falling asleep is probably not worth worrying about, as soon as you're into sleep breathing, you should be ok.
What's more important is to get that average AHI down to acceptable levels (an AHI of 5 really isn't acceptable, even if it is "good enough" for most doctors.

Jim - here is a graph expanded out to show half an hour

Here is one for 10 mins or so.

**Update - last night was one of the best sleeps I have had in the 3 weeks since this started. I took the 0.5mg Xanax about 45mins before bed. Must have slept through the first O2 drop and it was pretty smooth after that. I've had good nights like this before, and then right back to bad. So staying positive and hoping for some consistency!

No idea what happened with the Large Leaks, and I still don't fully understand RERAs but thats okay. Feeling good today!

Oscar Graph
O2 Graph

The drops in o2 saturation do not look like "loss of contact" events to me. Also interesting that your pulse rate doesnt show anything. Im afraid i dont know how to interpret them, but a good question for your doctor. Thanks for posting the graphs.
Jim

Just out of curiosity, have you tried putting the pulse-ox sensor on another finger
--or even on the other hand?

Yup, tried both thumbs and both index fingers. What was weird is two different oximeters had me at 88% just laying down last night, before I even started to try to sleep or put the CPAP on. Didn't think that was supposed to happen. Nothing surprises me anymore!

NewToSleepApnea wrote: ↑

Mon May 25, 2020 2:08 pm

Yup, tried both thumbs and both index fingers. What was weird is two different oximeters had me at 88% just laying down last night, before I even started to try to sleep or put the CPAP on. Didn't think that was supposed to happen. Nothing surprises me anymore!

If two different oximeters have measured you at 88% while completely awake and not using CPAP that we can probably conclude that CPAP is not responsible for the low sats.

Another good night. AHI is a little higher but I don't even care about that right now. Just about being able to sleep and not have my O2 drop.

Why 0.5mg of Xanax would keep my O2 from dropping, I have absolutely no idea but will take it.

Last - had another 4/5 times where my O2 dropped under 85 and woke me up.
First wake-up was around 12:05am
Second wake-up was around !2:20am

Here is a 45min clip of last night going to bed.

And then here it is expanded for a 5 min interval. These are two separate 5 min intervals where the same thing happened. It feels like my chest stops breathing and then my O2 drops based on oximeter. The first time I didn't feel fully asleep. The 2nd time I felt like I was asleep. Drs don't seem worried, or really seem to care. But man, this sucks.

Except I’m basically awake.

It’s at the point now where if I’m just relaxing and don’t think about breathing - sometimes my breath gets shallow and my O2 drops while fully awake. It’s not obstruction anything.

And it never happens during the night. Only when I first try to go to sleep. Once sleep, no obstruction or apnea is causing it to dip. Every time, only when transitioning to sleep.

NewToSleepApnea wrote: ↑

Fri May 29, 2020 4:11 pm

sometimes my breath gets shallow and my O2 drops while fully awake. It’s not obstruction anything.

This is NOT normal....someone needs to be listening to this part of your statement.
When O2 levels drop and we are AWAKE....something else is going on besides sleep apnea.
I know people want to blame apnea for all O2 issues but the cold hard fact of life is that there are a lot of potential physical issues that can cause O2 drops...apnea is but one of those issues....it isn't the only potential cause.

For it to be sleep apnea related...it needs to be happening when asleep...not while awake.
Don't ask me what it might be though. I am sorry but I have no idea. You need a good work up from a good lung doctor and then also something to evaluate what is happening when you transition to sleep from the wake stage.

Thanks Pugsy. I agree with you. Unfortunately, just had an appointment with a sleep neurologist that said “just give it time”. And said I should let them worry about the data. Don’t worry about my O2 levels. (Has no doctor even heard of Oscar?)

But I have a in lab sleep Study booked for Monday out of state! Will have to pay out of pocket but don’t care. Hopefully they take this all seriously.

**Question for all - can anyone else voluntarily lower their O2 levels by shallow breathing? I obviously aren’t meaning to do this but I can stop it early while awake. I thought it was really hard to drop your own O2 levels.

No....I can't force my oxygen levels lower just by shallow breathing. I can't even lower it with holding my breathe for as long as I can possibly lower it repeatedly.

Just FYI, you can import your pulse ox data directly into Oscar quite easily. I have the same model as you and it works great. Use Data > Import Viatom Data.