False events?

As I am trying to learn more about understanding OSCAR readouts, I could use help from someone knowledgeable as to whether the events shown in the images are real events or simply arousal events. Specifically, I am referring to the OA (first graph) and CA (second graph). Sleep quality is good and I have no memory of waking up.

The very obvious gulps of air PRIOR to the flagged event makes me think that the irregular breathing flagged is arousal related.
Don't assume we remember all arousals....we don't.

I vote that those flagged events are arousal/awake related and when I see those on my reports I shrug my shoulders and move on. Only way to reduce arousal related events is to try to figure out why the arousal is happening and reduce the number of arousals......easier said than done.

Now when you see a flagged event where there was no obvious irregular breathing then we tend to think "real" or asleep flagged event because we have to be asleep for anything flagged to matter much in terms of therapy effectiveness evaluations.

Asleep breathing is circled in red....anything else is arousal/awake breathing and all those flags aren't "real".





Now this one below......those are IMHO the real deal asleep flagged events. The flow rate is nice and rhythmic and no big gulps of air to make me think arousal.

If this were my data, I'd be writing both these examples off as post-arousal/sleep transition events.

If we look at this image:



The big breaths before the first OA look like arousal breathing. The irregular breathing that follows (including the second OA) all looks like SWJ. It looks like normal sleep breathing starts back up right around 6:54:30---at the very right edge of the window. In other words, it looks to me like you may have had a 4 or 5 minute "wakeful" period where you probably did wake up, but it took you a couple of attempts at falling back to sleep. Given the small amount of activity in the snore graph, it's possible that a snore or two is what triggered this wake. You most likely don't remember this wake because it was short (no more than 5 minutes long) and when it happened, even in your sleepy state, your brain realized there was no reason/need to be awake, and so you went right back to sleep. Maybe you fiddled with the covers or your pillow or something similar before you went back to sleep. Given that there is a very small leak right near this wake, it's also possible that the leak triggered the wake/arousal and that as soon as you fixed it, you fell back asleep. This kind of "wake" is not really an issue with sleep continuity---particularly since you don't remember it and you are feeling like you got a good night's sleep.

In your second image:



This looks to me like a typical post-arousal sleep transition CA. In other words, you had a very short spontaneous arousal, and there was a minor glitch in resetting the CO2 trigger for respiration as you quickly fell back to sleep. Again, there is a small amount of activity in the snore graph, so it's also possible that a snore or two is what caused the arousal

While an excessive number of spontaneous arousals can be disruptive to sleep continuity, it's normal to have a few of them over the course of the night, and if you feel rested and refreshed in the morning, that's a major clue that the number of your spontaneous arousals is not an issue that adversely affects the quality of your sleep.

Thanks guys! I do appreciate hearing from those with experience.