Sleep apnea without the apnea.

Peajay - you remind me of an old TV show about a 'superspy' (can't remember the show's name) who had a magic cape that allowed him to fly all over the place. The problem was that he didn't have the manual, and so ended up having to crash land everywhere, and not necessarily where he wanted to. You're still convinced you can do a better job on your own, or with some tips off the internet, but your health is at stake here, and this is not a science project. All you have to do is miss one aspect of things in your journey here, and it could skew everything else without your realizing it or understanding what happened. Plus your using equipment which may or may not be calibrated properly to begin with. I know there are organizations (do a search on the forum - I don't know the names) that provide help and/or machines for people who can't afford to buy them outright, and you might want to look into those.

To me - Re:the Subject line "Sleep apnea without the apnea." Leaves you with.....

"Sleep"

I could be wrong but Without the "Apnea" there should be "NO Problem". - you could be on the wrong forum.

Altho the biggest obstacle with OSA has always been "denial" - it seems you do have that.

[quote="peajay"][quote] ........ I was talking to a friend last night, and we were discussing just how poor a source of information the internet can be at times, and I said "but I have to say, it also seems to be as useful as a doctor." My friend couldn't think of a reason to disagree with me. We've both seen the same thing: If your problem is so unusal that typing your symptoms into Google fails to turn up the correct solution, then you're doctor isn't going to turn up the correct solution either.

...................[quote]

I am a fanatic supporter of this forum and the wonderful expert-patients who helped me.

One caveat about internet patient forums is that they do a poor job of diagnosis. Go to a patient-forum thinking you have a health problem and in a few hours you will be thinking you have a dozen health problems.

So get a diagnosis down pat from the medical professionals. Then go to an internet forum where you will find patients heavily experienced and knowledgeable about managing your particular health problem.

You're still convinced you can do a better job on your own, or with some tips off the internet, but your health is at stake here, and this is not a science project. All you have to do is miss one aspect of things in your journey here, and it could skew everything else without your realizing it or understanding what happened.

It's because it's my health that I've turned it into a science project. I've seen a sleep doctor. After a sleep study and two failed attempts at medication, he decided it's just all in my head. So either he's completely useless in which case going back isn't going to help, or the problem is so subtle he didn't notice it and so going back isn't going to help. It's like that saying: The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. If I have a sleep disorder, then it's apparently something that current medical practice doesn't know how to find, so why not look for it myself?

I don't really plan to do this entirely myself anyway. Should I discover useful evidence of something, I'll take that to my normal doctor, who seems rather intelligent and would surely know what to do. My sleep doctor, however, I just don't see any reason to visit him again.

Plus your using equipment which may or may not be calibrated properly to begin with.

The CPAP machine or the stuff I build? The stuff I build, I just make it work they way it should. As for the CPAP machine, I tested it, and it does what it's supposed to. It isn't as if since I only paid 10% for it, it's only 10% functional.

To me - Re:the Subject line "Sleep apnea without the apnea." Leaves you with.....

"Sleep"

I could be wrong but Without the "Apnea" there should be "NO Problem". - you could be on the wrong forum.

Yes, I intended that as a bit of a joke, figuring anyone who knew what I was talking about would understand it. ...and indeed, two people kindly mentioned the word "hypopnea."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypopnea

So it seems that I'm looking for "sleep hypopnea" rather than "sleep apnea."

One caveat about internet patient forums is that they do a poor job of diagnosis. Go to a patient-forum thinking you have a health problem and in a few hours you will be thinking you have a dozen health problems.

I don't think I'll have much of a problem with that. There's a huge filter between other people's opinions and my own. ...but I do know what you're talking about. I was hoping to find a bit more skepticism about the possibility that I have sleep apnea (or sleep hypopnea as it may be) since I'm trying to figure out whether or not this is my problem at all, but mostly people are insistant that I return to the sleep doctor, seemingly in belief that sleep apnea must be my problem and so surely the doctor will eventually realize his misdiagnosis.

Before returning to any doctor, I'd like to have something better to give them besides the same long list of ambiguous symptoms they weren't able to do anything with last time.

Perhaps now that I have a night's recording of data from my CPAP machine, people can look at it and understand why I think it isn't the right moment to return to my sleep doctor and demand sleep study after sleep study until he finally sees the same thing I've seen. For all I know, he may have aready seen it, and simply known it wasn't anything.

Anyway, here's the data from last night. It's eight pages of postscript files within a ZIP file:

http://www.ecstaticlyrics.com/secret/Sleep001.zip

The scale is posted at the top, basically each page is one hour, each line is three minutes, and between each vertical line is 30 seconds. There is no scale for the amplitude of the signals since it's simply the voltage from the CPAP machine, and if that signal is calibrated to anything, I don't know what it is. (but if someone knows that it is, tell me, I'll add a vertical scale)

On the second line of page 15 (which is the first page) you can see to vertical lines, with a flat line in between. The vertical lines are the result of the button beside my bed, which I press to mark when something happens. At this point I just marked where I was holding my breath with the mask on, to verify that the thin horizontal line was actually at the "no air movement" point, to test the calibration. Where that point is changes depending on the CPAP pressure, the number of exhaust holes in the mask, and how much air is leaking from the mask. It looks like it was spot on, so that's good.

When air flow out of the machine increases (when I inhale) the signal goes above the baseline, and when air flow decreases (when I exhale) it goes below the baseline. I don't know why the area under the curve for inhale is so often larger than the area above the curve for exhale, but since it occurs even when I'm awake, it's apparently just how it works.

Any kind of movement tends to cause strange readings, partially because of momentary leaks from the mask, and partially from seemingly natural modification of breathing patterns. If you looked at what I posted yesterday, it was entirely while I was awake, so anything unusual that appeared on that page isn't actually so unusual.

So anyway, here's what I think of what I see:

Page 15: The first half of the page I was likely still awake. The extremely regular pattern on the second half must have been when I was asleep, because I can't make such regular breathing cycles even if I intentionally try.

Page 16: On the second line, I'm not sure what that small period of no breathing is. The large spike in the third section might be the result of moving around, and there appears to be some deeper breathing at the time as well, and I do tend to take a deep breath whenever I decide to move after lying still for a while. So it's not impossible that, having just inhaled a bit more oxygen, I didn't feel the need to breath more than four times in the next 30 seconds, but that's kind of a long time for so few breaths.

Afterwards the signal begins rising above the baseline as it continues down the page. I assume the mask was coming loose. I remember deciding to tighten it at some point while sleeping, so this may have been that time, particularly since there's a vertical line which indicates I pushed my button because I awoke, followed by 45 seconds of messy signal, likely resulting from me moving around a lot. One minute before I pushed the button, there's about 15 seconds of much smaller signal, but since the mask was seemingly loose, it may not mean anything.

The last 2/3 of the last line looks rather odd. There my respiration rate seems to be 20, whereas further up the page in a more normal looking location, it's 16. I don't know if that means anything or not.

Page 17: There appears to be a minute of almost no breathing between the second and third line. Then it all continues to look a bit strange until I push the button half way down the page, then it all starts to look more normal for the rest of the page. I should note that, when I push the button, it's usually 5 seconds or so after waking up. I have to first notice that I've woken up, then remember that I should hit the button, then there's usually a moment of deciding that, yes, I really should hit the button, then I have to sit up so that I can see and push the button. Sometimes it goes faster or slower. So the point of the deep breath just before the button mark might be where I woke up.

Page 18: The top two-thirds looks normal enough, with a deep breath on the second line, and some short periods of movement further down. On line 14 (I need to make my script number them) there appears to be some really weak breathing, and the rest of the page appears to become stronger, then weaker, then stronger, then weaker. Respiration rate again appears to have increased, but again just barely, from 17 further up the page to 20 at this point.

Page 19: Weirdness continues until some movement on line 6, after which things seem to stabalize. Then in the fourth division of line 16, something happens. From there until the third division of line 17, the signal moves up from the baseline, which would seem to mean that the mask has begun to leak air. I don't know what to make of the large spike between the second and third division. It looks like a large deep breath which is only half exhaled, the rest held for about 5 seconds before release. That leaves an open question for why I woke up. One other interpretation might be that it was obstructed during exhale, and waking up corrected that, but that would mean that I pressed the button only two seconds after waking up, which I think is unlikely. The rest of the page looks fairly normal.

Page 20: The top 1/3 looks OK, then on line 7 things begin to look unusual again. Line 9 appears to have two short moments of non-breathing, and then a minute later I wake up and press the button. The minute after that looks normal, then it starts looking strange, and I wake up and hit the button again on line 13. After that it looks normal again until the last two lines on the page.

Page 21: The top two lines continue to look unusual, then I press the button again on the third line. Then there's normal breathing for a minute, then some weakness for 30 seconds, but then it looks perfectly normal for 15 minutes later when I wake up and press the button again.

One minute after that, there's 15 seconds in which there appears to be no breathing, but being just one minute after waking up, it seems unusual. It was preceeded by some unusually long and deep breaths, so perhaps I was over-oxygenated, and simply didn't need to breathe. However, I don't like any of those explainations, which makes me suspect equipment failure, but I don't like that explaination either since I can't think of a mode of failure that would result in the signal staying at the baseline. The only way to reliably put the signal there is to put the mask on my face and not breathe. (I can explain if anyone cares, but it's a long explaination, so I deleted it.) So apparently it must have happened, even if I can't explain it.

The rest of the page looks OK.

Page 22: This looks OK too, until I wake up, and then after still being awake a minute later (I had to use the bathroom) I decide it's time to end the experiment.

So I hope that explains my confusion. While it seems like something is probably going on, it just doesn't seem like the "sleep apnea" I keep reading about. People talk about having 20 apneas per hour, whereas it seems I might have half an apnea per hour. On the other hand, my "sleep hypopnea" idea doesn't seem out of the question, since the breathing appears unusual in 36 out of 184 lines (1 hour 48 minutes out of 7 hours 12 minutes, or 20% of bed time). However, it's far from obvious whether or not there is a problem. I've been staring at this stuff for a while, someone who looks at it the first time might not see the difference between the "weird stuff" and the "normal stuff" since it's all just a bunch of squigly lines.

However, this is much more convincing then what I saw months ago when I first recorded data with the CPAP machine. I may have to just take a printout of this to my normal doctor and see if he can't find me a different sleep doctor, particularly if I can come up with something more convincing. (I can't make an appointment until Monday anyway.)

I think I'll try the temperature sensor idea again. It looked like there were a couple of apneas in there, and that was with a pressure of 10 cm H20. I might record something much worse than that if there's no pressure at all, but I suspect it won't differentiate between weak respiration and normal respiration, and so it may well fail to notice any hypopneas. I think I'll at least wire it up and play with it to see what different respiration strengths look like.

Haven't gone all the way through your last note yet, but it struck me that you've put so much (blame) on the first sleep doc. So accepting the fact for now that he was a dork, why don't you see someone else? It's your nose, but do you really want to cut it off?

As much time as you've spent fiddly fartin' around with that thing, you could have gotten the Encore software and reader (and another card) and actually SEEN what's going on.


Den

Hey PeaJay, you seem like a very committed and creative person trying to understand what is happening in your sleep.
Sounds like you got lucky and was able to get health insurance as you are exploring what your sleep troubles are. I think I read you were able to secure disability thus getting your insurance...What is the disability that helped you to get insurance so you were able to see your sleep doctor? Is your insurance Medicare or Medicaid? Sometimes type of insurance can influence the options of doctors you can see. If there were a sleep doctor you felt have a better interest in sorting out your sleep concerns, would you work with the doctor? Thanks for answering my questions.

elg5cats

peajay wrote: I was hoping to find a bit more skepticism about the possibility that I have sleep apnea (or sleep hypopnea as it may be) ....

You asked for it, you got it. I'll dispense with the politeness you're seeing here and cut to the chase. Go to another sleep doctor for diagnosis so that you can stop this endless worrying about it. Either you have it or you don't. Yes, it may have been missed by one study but it's not likely to be missed by two. Hopefully, if you're told twice that sleep apnea/hyponea isn't you're problem, you'll listen.

peajay wrote: I've seen a sleep doctor. After a sleep study and two failed attempts at medication, he decided it's just all in my head. So either he's completely useless in which case going back isn't going to help, or the problem is so subtle he didn't notice it and so going back isn't going to help. ....

Actually, peajay, there's another possibility there that you aren't considering.

peajay wrote: and I subsequently wondered if all of my sleeping problems weren't simply anxiety.....

I must say that I do see alot of anxiety in your posts. Perhaps you should continue with that line of thought.

In any case, best of luck to you!

peajay wrote:Before returning to any doctor, I'd like to have something better to give them besides the same long list of ambiguous symptoms they weren't able to do anything with last time.

The one piece of data that your doctor would find useful would be the plot of your events from the machine, along with the AHI number. The other data collected by the machine would also be useful including your leak line. Anything else you come up with, like tracking a voltage at a test point, is like trying to compute your miles per gallon by watching the windshield wipers. Put the data card back in your machine, run it for a night, and then see if you can get it read, or get the software to read it yourself.

peajay wrote:I think I'll try the temperature sensor idea again. It looked like there were a couple of apneas in there, and that was with a pressure of 10 cm H20. I might record something much worse than that if there's no pressure at all, but I suspect it won't differentiate between weak respiration and normal respiration, and so it may well fail to notice any hypopneas. I think I'll at least wire it up and play with it to see what different respiration strengths look like.

Well, if you are determined to keep going down this path, then try doing some experiments. Pressure levels can be too low and cause ineffective treatment, or it can be too high and trigger events. Try it at some different pressure levels, and see if you get different results. I still think you are flogging a dead horse here, and you might mess yourself up even worse, but at least it would keep you busy until you get your appointment with a new sleep doctor, about which you would be a huge bozo if you haven't made already or don't do so on Monday.

-john-

As much time as you've spent fiddly fartin' around with that thing, you could have gotten the Encore software and reader (and another card) and actually SEEN what's going on.

I'm not entirely opposed to that if it isn't too expensive and it results in some useful information. A few searches have convinced me that the information is useful, but the price is completely ridiculous. The card costs $12, the card reader is $139, and the software is $199, for a total of $350. That's a lot of money, particularly considering that standard card readers only cost $20 and that software doesn't appear to be very complex.

The data I'm getting now hasn't cost me anything. Everything I've used from my computer to the electronics used to measure the voltage is stuff I already had for many other reasons.

What is the disability that helped you to get insurance so you were able to see your sleep doctor?

A lot of people ask me what the disability is. My doctor asked as well, and seemed surprised that I wasn't sure. I think I told them it was some sort of personality disorder (I don't remember which one) at the time I first applied, since that was the diagnosis my psychologist had come up with at the time. However, every time I see a new psychologist, I get a new diagnosis, so I don't take that diagnosis to mean much, and in the paperwork I had to fill out I wrote about all of the many different things I thought might be wrong with me instead, from the many other diagnoses I've received from psychologists, to other things like sleep disorders which I'd never seen a doctor for. I also had an interview with a doctor of unknown type who asked a lot of questions, and it's possible he came up with his own diagnosis. So I may have it for any number of reasons, for all I know.

Is your insurance Medicare or Medicaid?

I have both.

If there were a sleep doctor you felt have a better interest in sorting out your sleep concerns, would you work with the doctor?

Certainly.

Go to another sleep doctor for diagnosis so that you can stop this endless worrying about it. Either you have it or you don't. Yes, it may have been missed by one study but it's not likely to be missed by two.

The most convincing thing I've read so far, as far as going back to the doctor again. I'll just have to shift my sleep schedule around, since I'm presently sleeping during office hours.

Actually, peajay, there's another possibility there that you aren't considering. I must say that I do see alot of anxiety in your posts. Perhaps you should continue with that line of thought.

Actually, I was considering that over the last six months or so, which is why I put the CPAP in the closet. ...and aside from that two weeks when I bought it, there was another year before that when I was considering that it might just be something psychological since, after all, my sleep doctor seemed to think it was.

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding... In the year and a half since I had my sleep study, I haven't spent that time playing around doing my own tests. The vast majority of that time was spent thinking the problem was actually something else, like anxiety.

Actually, I'll quickly summarize my entire life, just to clear up all confusion:

Age 0 to 12: No sleep problems, so I assume.

Age 13: Decided it wasn't normal to sleep 12 hours a day.

Age 14: Problems in school led to me refusing to go, which lead to my mother taking me to see a psychologist. Eventually I received some medication, but it didn't seem to do anything.

Age 14.2: Lack of school attendance resulted in state custody.

Age 14.3: I was sent to a hospital for 13 days for an evaluation. They noticed that I slept 12 hours a day, but they figured the best way to solve that problem was to lock me in a room with a hard floor and nothing to rest on. Since I then got up in the morning, they assumed the problem was solved, nevermind the fact that I could barely keep my eyes open during the day. In the end, they decided I had schizo-affective disorder and an IQ of 70.

Age 14.5: Continuing to see the psychologist, in one visit with a psychiatrist he took note of the fact that every time he saw me, I was yawning non-stop, but he didn't know what to make of it.

Age 15: The state eventually gave up and agreed to send me home on virtually whatever terms I demanded, so long as some sort of school attendance was involved. Since "going home" involved a new school district, I went ahead with the plan, assuming the new school would likely be more tolerable than the last, and it was.

Age 16: Played with a nintendo powerglove sensor trying to see if my feet moved while asleep, but I failed to figure anything out. Since this was the time before the internet and I had no knowledge of sleep disorders, I just sort of forgot about it after a while.

Age 17: I asked my doctor why I sleep 12 hours a day. He ordered some blood tests and promised to call when the results arrived. A week later I called him, and in seemingly less time than it would take to look up the results, he told me nothing was unusual, and that some people just need to sleep more than others.

Age 18: Went to see a different doctor. After a $75 office visit, I ended up with some advice to keep a regular sleep schedule, and a $10 prescrpition for the same dyphenhydramine I told him was completely ineffective at helping me to sleep. I subsequently decided I shouldn't turn a wasted $85 into a wasted $160 by scheduling a follow-up appointment. That was a week's pay, after all. Who has that kind of money to waste?

Ages 19 through 27: On occasions when sleep was particularly poor, I'd search the internet for answers. Then I learned of sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, and PLMD. Not knowing what might be the problem, and with no health insurace and an unwillingness to spend hundreds of dollars to receive more of the same advice I learned in health class at school and the same medications I can buy over the counter, I instead tried to build some stuff to find out what the problem was on my own, but limited resources and general fatigue meant that not a whole lot came of anything. Usually I would soon give up for reasons of "even if I find out what's wrong, what can I do about it anyway?" All of the treatments involved medications and machines I couldn't afford anyway.

Also during this time I'd occasionally go to see the psychologist, since a county program pays for psychological care for those who cannot afford it. (or at least it did at the time, I don't think the voters have approved of it lately) They tried many, many medications, as well as a lot of seemingly and apparently worthless talking about stuff. Eventually I decided to stop seeing them after they gave me a medication which I couldn't stop taking without severe side effects, but forgot to tell me that, and subsequently forgot to have some on hand when I returned for my next month's supply. However, after several years of not working, I decided I needed some help, so I returned since they're the only provider in the area. Thankfully they didn't try to kill me that time.

Age 28: After receiving disability, I decided that seeing a real doctor again might be a nice idea, particularly since it wasn't my hard-earned money that was on the line. I tried to find a new doctor, but apparently no doctor in the area is accepting new patients, so I had to see the same one as at age 18. Thankfully, he seemed to listen a lot more now. He seemed particularly interested in the fact that he hadn't seen me for ten years, and that the last time I'd seen him was for the same problem. Between many visits I received several sets of blood tests, ECG, chest x-rays, an MRI, and a referal to a neurologist, and finally a referal to a sleep doctor. The sleep doctor conducted a sleep study, decided I had PLMD or something, tried two medications that simply made the problem worse, then suggested I return to the psychologist.

Age 28.5: Two days after my sleep doctor suggested I return to the psychologist, the psychologist send me a letter saying they didn't want to see me anymore, due to confusion on their part about what was going on, typical of their incompetence. I didn't really want to see them either, so that was that.

Age 29.5: A year later, after a dream about suffication, I started again to wonder if I didn't have sleep apnea. So I bought a CPAP machine and played with it for a few days. Then after playing with it set to 4.0 for a few hours after having been awake for like 20 hours and yet completely unable to go to sleep, I began to somewhat hyperventilate, and a trip to the hospital resulted in a doctor saying "it was probably just anxiety." So I put the CPAP machine in the closet.

Last week: Extreme fatigue and another dream about suffication prompted me to think about the CPAP machine again, pull it out of the closet, try it a few times, and come to this forum.

So... Very little of my time has been spent doing my own tests. Most of it was spent in ignorance of possible sleep disorders, a lot of it was spent without affordable access to medical care, and much of it was spent with doctors who seemingly can't do anything to help. So I find it rather unusual that everyone wants to say "everything would be just fine if you would go see a doctor" and "nothing good will come of trying to solve this problem yourself." My entire life experience says that both of those statement are more false than true.

The one piece of data that your doctor would find useful would be the plot of your events from the machine, along with the AHI number. The other data collected by the machine would also be useful including your leak line.

Unless someone can find me a much cheaper source of that card, card reader, and software, that isn't going to happen.

...but if someone can explain how the machine determies these things, I might be able to collect the data and make the determinations myself. For example, if I knew how the machine decides when a hypopnea event has occured, I might be able to find the correct voltage points to monitor and determine for myself when such events are occuring. Then I can print a nice little report of it all and take that to my doctor.

I'd certainly like to know how it knows when hypopnea occurs, even if I had the special software, just out of curiosity about how well it actually knows. Internally, all it has to work with is information about air flow, air pressure, and it's knowledge of how it is driving the motor. Is that really enough data points to say that, yes, for sure, someone is definately having a hypopnea event? I mean, I can look at the data I've collected already and say "it looks like I was having a hypopnea event here" and I can type that up into a nice report with some colorful charts, but that doesn't mean my conclusions are correct. Similarly, just because the machine says so doesn't make it correct either.

To put it another way, I have a digital scale which claims to accurately measure body fat. Every day my body fat percentage changes by 5%. ...or, well, obviously it doesn't, but the scale seems to think so. The problem is that the scale is working from too few data points. It knows my weight, height, age, sex, and it has a couple of measurements it made sending electrical signals through my feet, but that's just not enough information for it to really know. It can guess, but it can't know for sure.

Anything else you come up with, like tracking a voltage at a test point, is like trying to compute your miles per gallon by watching the windshield wipers.

I would compare it to monitoring how much gas you put in your car and how many miles you drive rather than paying a mechanic $500 to install a special $500 device that displays your gas milage. It's really easy to determine the gas milage of your car: Fill the tank to the top, then reset your trip odometer, then drive any distance you like, preferably using up much of the gas in the tank. Return to the gas station and again fill your tank to the top. The gas pump will display the number of gallons you purchased, which will be equal to the number of gallons you used while driving that distance recorded by your trip odometer. Divide your miles by your gallons and there you go.

Perhaps all of this stuff with taking the machine apart and connecting it to my computer sounds complicated, but to me, it's as easy as filling up my gas tank and resetting my trip odometer. So why would I instead opt to spend $1000 on the fancy gadget that tells me my gas milage? To get supposedly more accurate information? Turns out some of those gadgets just make an estimate based on fuel injector timing and they can actually be quite inaccurate. Doing the calculation yourself save you money and gives you better information.

Pressure levels can be too low and cause ineffective treatment, or it can be too high and trigger events. Try it at some different pressure levels, and see if you get different results.

I try a different pressure pretty much every time I try the machine. So far the only trend I've noticed is that it is more difficult to tolerate when the pressure is either low or high. Too high and it's a problem to prevent the mask from leaking, which always wakes me up. Too low and it's more difficult to get to sleep and at some point I'll wake up and decide it isn't worth bothering with and take it off.

I'm wondering if it might be that just wearing the mask makes it more difficult to sleep, and so I want to take it off, but at higher pressures it becomes easier to sleep, and so I'd rather just sleep instead of stay awake long enough to contemplate whether or not I want to remove the mask.

Anyway...

The data recording for last night didn't turn out so well. By the time I was ready to go to sleep, I was too tired to spend a whole lot of time getting the plastic bag on my face to fit just right, and it turned out to be too disturbing to fall asleep while wearing. So I tossed the temperature sensor aside and instead tried the CPAP again, this time at a pressure of 4, and here's that file:

http://www.ecstaticlyrics.com/secret/20 ... P%204.0.ps (four pages in one file)

I rewrote the scripts that record the data and create the printouts. Now each line is numbered with the minute it begins at, and the baseline is determined automatically by the first 12 seconds of the recording (where I hold my breath) so it's always in exactly the correct place.

I only slept for about three hours before I couldn't stand it anymore. I think I was awake for all of page 1. Page 2 looks like normal breathing for the first 45 minutes, then there is more "weird stuff" in the form of oscillations between light and heavy respiration. Then on page three, I pushed the button in the 10th minute, and I remember that I lay there for a while after waking up before it occured to me to push the button, and I pushed it three times as an indication that I forgot, but apparently all three lines just formed one big black mark. After that, breathing looks normal for the rest of the page. On page 4, it looks normal until 15 minutes in. In the first half of minute 19 there appears to be movement (which always causes wild readings) and after that things improve for a minute. There again appears to be movement in the second half of minte 31, after which things appear to be just fine. At the end of the page, I wake up, decide I've had enough, take off the mask, then turn off the machine.

In other news...

I noticed on the inside of the machine that there's a place for a connector which would be on the back of the machine if the connector were there. I guess it's something meant to attach to a computer in a sleep lab, but I couldn't find any details for it. I attached some wires (skipping over a few missing components on the PCB) but there didn't seem to be anything going on. Of the eight pins, two are unconnected, two are ground, three were a constant +5v with impendance less than 100 ohms, and the last was a constant +5v with impendace 10,000 ohms. It didn't appear to be doing anything. I also tried watching it during device powerup, but nothing interesting happened. Then I tried lowering the voltage on the 10,000 ohm pin, but it didn't appear to respond to that either. It's either nonfunctional or it expects something really special before it'll do anything. I'll have to look further to see if I can find any sort of switch to activate it. I also didn't think to watch it while in programming mode, I'll have to try that too.

Also, looking at a few screenshots of that encore software has made me think that I need to look for more data points. The one I have now represents airflow, but surely there must be a point which represents pressure, and probably some other things too. I can record multiple data points at once, so it's worth connecting a few more, even if they initially appear useless.

You're looking in the wrong places and have your figures wrong.

Here's a link for the total bundle.

https://www.cpap.com/productpage-bundle.php?BundleID=64

If you Google "Mako or Infineer DT3500" there are places that sell them for around $50.

https://www.cpap.com will price match other vendors prices.

The software can be had for little or nothing if you Google "Encore Pro" and spend a few minutes looking.
The CPAP machine you have will work with any version between 1.4 and 1.8 (depending on which computer OS you're using).

How much time have you spent on this "bit-twiddling" so far? Is your time worth anything? If you've spent more than about $70 worth of your time on it, you've wasted at least that much and still don't have any meaningful data.


Den

Well, that connector could be for all kinds of things, but in the interests of focusing on your original problems, forget it for now. Using the machine at 4 (the low default machine setting) is pointless - no one can breathe that way, and setting it at 15+ would give similar results to someone who didn't need it. Try 3 nights (not 1 or 2) at 8 or 10 and see how you feel. I think the majority of us are between 8 and 12, so it might actually give you some help. Now I don't know what mask you're using, but if you breathe with your mouth open when sleeping, you'll lose the air meant to go down, instead of out, and the standard answer would be to use a "full face" mask (nasal one that extends to cover your mouth), but if you're broke and have no immediate access, at least try using tape to test how it works for a couple of nights - using 3M trans- or micropore 1" wide tape from the drugstore. Of course continue to use your ? nasal mask while doing it, not overly tight (which can cause leakage). Some of us even use it every night. Just try these couple of things and give them a couple of nights each to gauge whether they're helping anything. Don't fiddle otherwise with the machine. Just set the machine and try the tape and report back here.

Peajay, it sounds like your more interested in reverse-engineering your CPAP machine and how it records information than you are in solving your own problems. You can get the software and card reader for $139 at DirectHomeMedical.Com, or you can go get the URL and have CPAP.Com match the price. You'll still need to buy a smart card.

You haven't really listened to anyone here, and my guess is you don't listen to your docs either.

If you're going to shrug everyone off and continue on your current path, methinks you'll be eyeball deep in trouble.

If you really came here for some advice, listen to the advice people have given you and start getting to the bottom of the problem.

Peajay, you certainly have one of the most ingenious minds I've run across in a while. You have my sympathy in not being able to nail down a cause -- or if not that -- at least a resolution for your challenges; as I posted before, sure sounds like hypopneas to me. You've had nitwits for docs -- pretty common for folks here. I really do think you need to get hooked up with a competent sleep doc who cares enough to positively identify or eliminate sleep disordered breathing as a cause. You have multiple issues so this might take some time to nail down a resolution for each. Good luck! Maybe you can find an AWAKE group where you might be able to get some recommendations for a sleep doc. Getting a reader and software would be great at determining what is occurring while you sleep but it is cost prohibitive. Have you been able to rig up a recording video of your sleep yet?

Peajay,
Do you take any medications that are prescibed, you purchase from the store yourself or get from friends? Just questioning if there are medications which might change your sleep. Did the psychologist ever say there was a concern for autism or obsessive compulsive disorder? Do you take any medications at all for your anxiety?

elg5cats