Sleep Study Question....

I've obviously misunderstood the personality of the cpaptalk board. When I was lurking I got the impression that it was a supportive group but after asking my question and seeing certain replies I was obviously mistaken.

Hi Randy. I have read through the thread and it seems to me that people are trying to be helpful given the rather limited information you have provided. The sleep study is certainly not normal conditions, as as been pointed out. However, from other posts I have read here and on other forums, we tend to underestimate the time we actually slept. This is probably particularly true when we are "fighting" to go to sleep. We don't realize that we just need to relax (easier said than done!) and sleep will usually come.

One poster advised you to be careful that your "sleep doc" is not setting you up for recommending surgery - that certainly is an option for some people, but needs to be fully researched and all the pros and cons fully assessed for your particular situation. If memory serves me correctly, at the time I was diagnosed with SA my insurance company required me to fail on PAP equipment before they would cover surgery, so that is something else you will want to check out.

If there is any information that you are not being given by your sleep doc following the sleep study, if you are in the US you have a right to the full report. This is covered by HIPAA, and you just have to threaten to report the doc for not providing the documentation (they can charge you a reasonable copying fee).

Because everyone is different and/or has different experiences with sleep apnea, you do need to provide all the information that is requested so that people here can be helpful to you.

Hope this helps.

Randyp1234 wrote:I've been lurking here for a while after doing a sleep study and having the tech give me a hint that I'll be doing a titration test next. Emailing with my doctor today he said that my results were mixed. He said that following Medicare criteria I did not have OSA but according to the pulmonology group's AHI criteria I do. At this time I do not know what my AHI number was. My question is - the night of the sleep study I slept terrible because of the strange environment and all the crap attached to me. I assume if I'm not sleeping deeply that my AHI would be less. Is this a correct assumption?

Thanks,

Randy

I would do it At Home, pay about $200 and not trust those crappy Techs for titration. See Stacie's post here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=64816&p=613391&hili ... A6#p613391

Look at a sample of the beutiful reports that you will be receiving from IDS:

http://www.instantdiagnostic.com/ids/do ... 0-2010.pdf

Randy,
This is no time to give up, or blame the helpful angels here; but to do what we all must do.
Contact your doctor for the results, and then your insurance, and find out if you do qualify.
You may be surprised.
Also, find out If the sleep/pulmo specialist will go to bat for you if your insurance declines.
It is also possible that a lab/DME combination may have a vested interest in convincing you
that you need treatment even if insurance will not cover it. Trust them not.

Randyp1234 wrote:My main question here, though, is whether the fact that I wasn't sleeping well would impact the results of the test.

You should sleep during the sleep test to have valid results, yes.

Randyp1234 wrote:If I was sleeping "deeper" is it likely that I'd have different AHI results?

Yes.

Randyp1234 wrote:I felt I wasn't sleeping deep enough to even snore - although the tech did say I was in REM sleep just before she woke me.

Who do YOU believe?

SleepyToo2 wrote:we tend to underestimate the time we actually slept.

sooo true. Esp. when/while we are sleep deprived.

My advice is worth what you paid for it. For better FREE advice read here - http://www.freecpapadvice.com/

Randyp1234 wrote:I've obviously misunderstood the personality of the cpaptalk board. When I was lurking I got the impression that it was a supportive group but after asking my question and seeing certain replies I was obviously mistaken.

You know…..I'm going to change my mind about not coming to this board again. There's just too much good information here to let some self professed “Devils Advocate” keep me away. I'm usually a pretty easy going guy but something about jamiswolf’s post(s) just pissed me off.

I went back for a titration test Friday night and before we got started I had a nice chat with the tech about the previous test. Robysue – your post was pretty much spot on to what we talked about. Medicare's scoring requires oxygen saturation levels to drop by 4% or more before they're scored. The “mixed results” were that in 257 minutes of sleep I had no apneas and only 5 hypopneas with a saturation drop of 4% or greater. Thus – according to Medicare my AHI was at 1.15 and I do not have OSA. However, I had other hypopneas that did not drop my saturation below 4% and when considering those my AHI was at 19.14 (20.87 in REM and 17.52 non-REM). One thing to note about the REM score is that I only had 34.5 minutes of REM sleep. So that kind of does support my feelings that had I slept “better”, which assumes more REM sleep, my scores might have actually been worse than when tested – but that's neither here nor there.

After the titration test Friday I can say with all certainty that CPAP is going to make a big difference.

Thanks for your responses to my questions