average leak rate

Sleepless on LI · Post by **Sleepless on LI** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 2:13 pm

loonlvr,

Kind of figured it was you, instead of guest, from the content.

Now if only I could figure out why I'd have hypops and not apnea. My first sleep studied showed no apnea, 4+ hypops per hour and 14+ PLMD per hour, which seemed to be, as they put it, responsible drastically for fragmenting my "sleep architecture."

Does one really need to be on cpap is you aren't getting apnea episodes??? Not that hat happens every night, but my apnea index is usually very low and there aren't usually any hypops. Last night was certainly different.

I think I'm going to request a new PSG, as much as I dislike them, in the near future to see if I truly need to use the machine anymore. With an average AHI of 0.1-0.5, and no hypops or snoring, I am beginning to think perhaps not.

loonlvr · Post by **loonlvr** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:47 pm

So should I set an alarm? And I guess I don't go into REM the next 5 hrs?

ozij · Post by **ozij** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 8:38 pm

I take it you were joking about the alarm...
If it were me I would consider a second PSG to figure out what is goin on both in terms of the sleep stage, and in terms of oxygen saturation. I might possibly pass on another PSG if I was feeling distinctly better -

Trying another auto is a good idea - let us know the results if you do!

O.

Sleepless on LI · Post by **Sleepless on LI** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:53 am

UPDATE:

The following is an excerpt from a post I just left on another thead, but it truly belongs here. This is from last night's experience, 8/17-8/18.

I taped my mouth with first one Tegaderm patch and then cut one in two pieces to secure the sides from popping off, and curled my lips in so that may help leaks. It did!!! I went from the 32-43 range to 18. Amazing. So I know the mouth breathing is where those larger leaks numbers are coming from. Can't wait to get Dr. Sue's device so I can stop the patches. But last night they worked great. If you saw my othr post about leaks and the chart I posted, you won't believe this one...

Leaking Report from 8.16.05

Leakage Report from Last Night 8.17.05

So there you go...my leaks are definite mouth breathers...Dr. Sue, hurry up!!! But that is one great way in the meanwhile to stop them. And I don't think it hurts to much to remove the patch in the AM.

n0trab · Post by **n0trab** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 4:32 pm

th wrote:I always wanted to know what was a good leak rate also. So I called Respironics and got tech support from Tony(Respironics) Tony said you want anything under 45. I told him my leak rate ran in the low 30's and my wife's run in the upper 20's....He said both of those are Excellent numbers.

What is this number measuring? My SilverLining software with PB 420E is reporting leaks in liters/second. Are your numbers ("under 45") percentages? How do I calculate percentages from SilverLining?

Sleepless on LI · Post by **Sleepless on LI** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 5:27 pm

Wow, thanks for that quote from th. I must have missed it earlier in this thread (don't know how, it was so important to me). I had no idea that now that my numbers are 18-19, from 32-43, they were that good. My graphs were from my Encorepro, which measures lpm, I believe, which are liters per minute, not seconds like the Silverlining does. I guess you would have to convert the minutes to seconds and figure that one out???

WAFlowers · Post by **WAFlowers** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 6:00 am

n0trab wrote:What is this number measuring? My SilverLining software with PB 420E is reporting leaks in liters/second. Are your numbers ("under 45") percentages? How do I calculate percentages from SilverLining?

I believe that leak is usually liters/minute. So multiply the SL number by 60.

(Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.)