How to interpret new OSCAR data?

[I apologize, I need to get something off my chest]
I've finally managed to record my OSCAR data. I've been on CPAP for 1 month (ResMed Autosense 10) with a hybrid mask. I feel no change, and think I sleep slightly worse with it, but I'm able to tolerate it every night. My main gripe is still the same:
I wake up feeling unrefreshed every morning, as if I only got 2 hours of sleep. I'm a super light sleeper. In the past, I would wake suddenly out of breath, what I was calling "adrenaline spikes." I was diagnosed with mild OSA, AHI of 5, and I'm 170 pounds, 38 yr old m. My pressure settings are 5-14, which I suspect is too low, even though my doctor said my settings are where they should be.

This condition I have (whether it's the apnea or something else) has completely ruined my life. My short and long term memory are terrible, I've started getting high blood pressure which I've never had before. My anxiety is so bad, and I feel like such garbage daily, that I no longer do anything social, and spend all my time resting at home. Even going to the store requires a lot of "recharge" time. I have terrible brain fog, I mess up things all the times, I have such low energy that I can't leave the house unless I need to (for work or food). For Christmas, I saw my parents for 3 days, and needed a week just to recover/recharge from that. I put on a "mask" when I'm around people, to pretend like I'm all good and everything is fine. But I'm miserable and it's completely ruined my life.

I don't snore, and was super disappointed in my sleep study to find I had an AHI of 5. But the night of my sleep study was one of the worse sleeps I've ever had, I felt like I only slept 1 hour, I was uncomfortable and waking every hour. I suspect that I have UARS. But even last night's OSCAR data doesn't show hardly any hypopneas. I think my lower jaw is super loose, and I'll wake up feeling a lot of "give" in my jaw. When I'm lying on my back, I can feel my jaw/pallet loosen. When I push my lower jaw forward, I feel I can breath in twice as much. I used to sing, and in the last few years, I've found my singing capacity is severely limited. I once took some sort of lung capacity test at a clinic, and was supposed to breathe a level of 600 for my age/weight but I only managed 400. That doctor suspected I had asthma, which was a wrong diagnosis.

Could someone look at this data and help interpret them for me? My sleep doctor says according to her data, I'm doing great, my numbers look good, and she said "your apnea is cured!" But I definitely don't feel it, and thought maybe her numbers were giving a false rosy picture of my reality. Any help would be really appreciated.

wonderwall999 wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:58 pm

Could someone look at this data and help interpret them for me? My sleep doctor says according to her data, I'm doing great, my numbers look good, and she said "your apnea is cured!" But I definitely don't feel it, and thought maybe her numbers were giving a false rosy picture of my reality. Any help would be really appreciated.

welcome to the zoo!

first off, i hope your doctor did not literally say "your apnea is cured". apnea is NOT cured, but treated. and that is something your doctor should know.

pedantry aside, it isn't reasonable to expect to feel the best that you can feel after a month on the machine. yes, there ARE rare folk that get the benefit straight away. but you aren't going to see them on cpaptalk because their problems are solved and they don't need anything else.

it can take weeks to months to feel the full benefit of cpap therapy. i wish i could predict exactly when this will happen for you. i can't, because it's different for different people.

what might help is to keep a sleep journal. every morning, before looking at your oscar data, write down how you feel. it helps to keep it in writing because the improvements can be gradual.

the first thing i noticed was that i didn't get up to pee 6 times per night. after months, it got to the point where i'd only get up once or even not at all.

this might not be the specific problem in your case. but i also starting feeling more rested and with less brain fog.

hang in there, things will improve. don't give up. you'll get there.


good luck!

oh! btw....yes, according to your numbers, you are doing FANTASTIC!

Do you wake often during the night?

Do you take any medications of any kind? If so, what?

There's nothing on the report that is screaming out "fix me".