Hypopnea vs apnea

What is the difference between hypopnea and apnea? Yesterday I was looking over my report and realized that I didn't have apneas, just hypopneas.

Apnea is the stopping of breathing, and could be caused by total obstruction.
Hypopnea is the reduction of breathing (>50%), and could be due to partial obstruction.

The Dreamer.

Apnea = you stop breathing for 10 seconds or more

Hypopnea = you don't breathe deep enough to get the required oxygen. I believe the technical stuff is: less than 50% required volume for at least 10 seconds. These can be obstructive or central just like apneas.

Both of these have a decline in oxygen in your blood. The threshold is somewhere around 3% or 5% decline I think.

With both of these your body will eventually wake you up enough to correct the situation.

You are using a Resmed machine which counts Hypoapneas differently. The number of Hypoapneas showing up with a Resmed machine will be higher than with a Respironics machine.

What is your H number generally?

Given what you have said, I assume that your AHI is the same number as your H. Right?

My machine is the ResMed Escape which does not give me stats. I was referring to the titration study.

Also with the Resmed, you shouldn't scratch your nose or cough while using a FFM. I use 4 masks, one of which is the Quattro. I made the mistake of thinking I could just slide the mask over to cough or scratch my nose one night. AHI = 9 the next morning. Also, be careful to turn the machine OFF before removing it from your face each morning, or during the night also.
Jay

HYPOPNEA is harder to pronounce, "I have sleep hypopnea!"

OBSTRUCTIVE APNEA (OA)= cessation of airflow for 10 seconds or greater.
HYPOPNEA (H) =>50% decrease in airflow for 10 seconds or greater with a decrease in oxygen saturation of >3%.
APNEA/HYPOPNEA INDEX (AHI) = apnea plus (+) HYPOPNEA/hour of sleep.

Good luck with your therapy.

Georgio

nomoore wrote:Apnea = you stop breathing for 10 seconds or more

Hypopnea = you don't breathe deep enough to get the required oxygen. I believe the technical stuff is: less than 50% required volume for at least 10 seconds. These can be obstructive or central just like apneas.

Both of these have a decline in oxygen in your blood. The threshold is somewhere around 3% or 5% decline I think.

With both of these your body will eventually wake you up enough to correct the situation.

Good definition..but the cpap machines do not have oxiometers, so they are guessing at hyponeas using flow rate measurements. When I bought and used an oximeter, it showed no reduction in O2 levels, though the cpap machine showed several hypopneas

I have hyponeas when I sleep. Not apneas. The result is the same though. CPAP is still the "cure".

I get the same results - my AHI is almost entirely hypopnea, almost all of the time.

I understood apnea to be a complete obstruction for >10 seconds, and a hypopnea to be a partial obstruction for >10 seconds.

I have not yet been able to learn what it means, therapeutically; is it GOOD to have more hypopneas than apneas? It would seem so - they just seem less severe.

Does it say anything about the relationship between BMI and AHI? It would seem partial obstructions would be more likely to be cleared up by reducing neck size through weight loss. But that might just be my wishful thinking.

I was quite interested to see georgepds's comment that his hypopneas didn't drop his 02 - so with hypopneas, what triggers the brain to wake you up to breath? Or is his data an anomaly?

If hypopneas are less likely to reduce 02, are the health risks lower than with apneas.

**
For me...I last night for the first time since starting therapy made the half-asleep decision to skip the mask for a night. I slept about seven hours and feel awful. If my HI was 3.5 with the machine, it must be at least ten times that without. Hypopnea or apnea, the tiredness still exists!

Hypoapneas, while not a good thing, are not as bad as Apneas. With Apneas, the airway closes completely. With Hypoapneas, the airway partially closes. I guess you could say the health risks are somewhat lower with Hypoapneas but risks still exist. They are still sleep interruptions and restrict the airflow somewhat so the fewer you have the better - same as with Apneas. You will still feel sleepy during the day with only Hypoapneas - maybe not as much?????

Resmeds count more Hypoapneas than other brands of machines. A person using a Resmed will have more Hypoapneas than Apneas showing up in their data. I don't know much else about Resmeds. Some, on the forum, have said to cut the number of Hypoapneas by 1/2 to get a truer picture of the number occurring.