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Does that mean "Yes, I'm self diagnosing and self treating?"
That's not the meaning of RERA. RERA is Respiratory Effort Related Arousals.
To elaborate on that: The machine's identification of "Central (or Clear Airway) Apnea" is only valid when it appears when the machine is analyzing the regular breathing typical of sleep. Nothing in that perious looks regular enough for valid analysis.
As an aside, have you ever noticed that the only time that the PR machines start getting 'restless' and start doing their sawtooth pressure probes is when the users breathing is very nice and regular? So if you glance at a PR pressure trace, and it's a nite full of sawtooth pressure twiddling, you'll find the breathing is always really pretty and regular.
First off, thank you for your insight and for explaining things so methodically. Do you have a similar chart that shows what regular sleep-breathing would look like? Why the heck is mine so erratic?
You're very good, this is exactly what I'm experiencing! This all started one month ago after I recovered from COVID. I started being woken up by a jolt when falling asleep. I didn't think much of it, but the next day I kept struggling to fall asleep, then I started noticing that my breathing would get pretty shallow as I'm approaching sleep, I doze off very briefly, then I wake up because I "manually" have to take the next breath. I used to be a heavy sleeper, now I'm jolted awake by what feels like moments of no breathing. My doctor prescribed hydroxyzine, then Ambien, to just knock me out and stop focusing on my breathing. But now I'm jolted awake even on Ambien after 2 hours, so I'm not sure it's my anxiety, when it happens while completely unconscious. That's why I was initially suspecting central apnea.
I'm definitely sensitive to lots of things now. Leg spasms, night sweats, adrenaline rushes... all those things kept me up during the sleep study. I fell asleep almost immediately, but then kept being woken up for 5 hours.
I'm a long time CPAP user, and a bout of Covid really messed up my sleep temporarily. More so when I was ill (with fever and coughing), and it did take a while for things to settle down.wetwilly wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 12:46 amThis all started one month ago after I recovered from COVID. I started being woken up by a jolt when falling asleep. I didn't think much of it, but the next day I kept struggling to fall asleep, then I started noticing that my breathing would get pretty shallow as I'm approaching sleep, I doze off very briefly, then I wake up because I "manually" have to take the next breath. I used to be a heavy sleeper, now I'm jolted awake by what feels like moments of no breathing. My doctor prescribed hydroxyzine, then Ambien, to just knock me out and stop focusing on my breathing. But now I'm jolted awake even on Ambien after 2 hours, so I'm not sure it's my anxiety, when it happens while completely unconscious. That's why I was initially suspecting central apnea.
CPAP is meant to take care of sleep disordered breathing that is, breathing that is disordered simply because you're asleep. If you think Covid may have had an impact on your breathing in general, you have to discuss this with a pulmonologist, maybe have a pulmonary function test that will either tell you that all is well with your breathing , or perhaps tell you there's a problem that can be a taken care of. Are you / were you a smoker?What would you use to treat disordered breathing? Do I simply need to do breathing exercises and get off the PAP machine? Someone said I should hold my breath for long periods of time to get my body used to high C02 levels, instead of being hypersensitive to it... not sure how true that could be.
I am not a smoker, I used to have no health issues, 5'8" height at 145lbs. COVID was very mild. I started experiencing tachycardia a week later, then a little insomnia, then came the jolts and feelings of breathing cessation as I doze off into sleep. That's when I took the sleep study, and they told me I have a mild case of upper-respiratory resistance, and they recommended a mouth-guard, or CPAP if I really wanted it. So I got the CPAP, but it didn't work because it wasn't addressing the underlying issue.
And what is the "underlying issue" that a CPAP didn't address?wetwilly wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 1:04 pmThat's when I took the sleep study, and they told me I have a mild case of upper-respiratory resistance, and they recommended a mouth-guard, or CPAP if I really wanted it. So I got the CPAP, but it didn't work because it wasn't addressing the underlying issue.