World Record AHI?

Hi all. Finally got to see my sleep study results and I had a AHI of 88. From what I can tell, this is a very high number (bad, like in Golf) I am anxiously waiting for my machine and am actually a little nervous about sleeping with out one now. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

Yes, you certainly have your share. But just think how good you'll feel with successful treatment! Find a way to go from an 88 to under 5 and you will feel like a new man... Something to look forward to.

Work hard at getting used to the mask and don't give up. Read and learn as much as you can here. Go through the old threads and you'll find what you need to be successful.

Keep asking questions.


What was the breakdown of the apneas... obstructive, central, hyponeas?

BTW, try to sleep on your side until the machine arrives to keep gravity from pulling your tongue back towards the throat. (to minimize obstructive apnea)

Tom

Welcome to the forum. You certainly have a learning curve in front of you, so getting a head start by reading many posts on this forum will make that process somewhat easier. With your AHI you will probably find that you adapt quite quickly. Your body will recognize that the mask and machine are helping you to recover from the ill effects of the apnea. Did the doc tell you what your oxygen levels went down to, if at all? Not everyone experiences those drops, but if you did, your chances of success are probably going to be high.

My AHI was only 31. So at 88 yours is very high in comparison. However, as you read on this forum you will see that some people experience levels of 100 to 120 plus. So sorry, no world record for you my friend!

Please post back with any questions you have, and someone will surely answer. The biggest one I had after I got my diagnosis was how can I survive until I get my machine? The answer is that you have been without a machine for maybe several years, so a few more nights without one will not make any difference. Just make sure you find out what features you need in a machine by reading, and then demand that you get those features.

Good luck!

My sleep study AHI was 130. My current AHI is down to less than 2 now, sometimes way less than 1.

Hang in there, ask questions, study this board, learn as much as you can.

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, I AM very excited at the prospect of improvement. My Apnea summary says 109 NREM OBS with 0's in all the other columns. Hypopnea Sum was 8 NREM OBS, all other columns 0. That was in 4.5 hours, I had a 'split study'. My prescribed setting is 10cm. My 02 desaturation was as low as 84%.

aevans410 wrote:My sleep study AHI was 130. My current AHI is down to less than 2 now, sometimes way less than 1.

Wow, didn't know it went over 100! Can you please briefly describe any benefits you noticed? Thanks

In the two hours I was in the study (before they put a mask on me), I stopped breathing 225 times, my sleep doc says I ranked in the top 10 of the worse they have ever seen.

As far as benefits goes :

I no longer have night sweats.
I no longer snore like a freight train.
I get up early and exercise now.
I don't feel like I want to fall asleep when I'm driving home.
I'm alert from the time I wake up until the time I get home.
My mood is generally better.

Sounds like you're on the right path.

Some info to encourage you:

For years I could not understand how I could be in reasonably good physical shape, exercised, ate right and did all the normal healthy stuff - but still had to drag my ass out of bed tired each morning. For years friends told me I stopped breathing and gagged when waking up, but I just laughed it off like most guys do when told they snored.

My sleep study showed severe central activity and some OSA. AHI=39. I was having chest pains and panic attacks when waking up with up to 95 second apneas. They came in long clusters. Stroke city.

Tried an S9 Auto APAP. The AHI got worse. My sleepyHead chart looked like one big central at times... My brain would not let me fall asleep because it KNEW I was about to suffocate. I told the GP doctor that I kept "forgetting to breathe." He didn't understand what that meant.

Bought myself an Adapt SV, an ASV machine designed for centrals and Cheyne-Stokes problems. The first night my AHI dropped to <1 !!! I was estatic and thought there was something wrong with the data. But I slept like a rock and felt pretty good the next morning.

Over the last 2 months my health has returned to excellent, the bags under my eyes are almost gone and I feel much younger. My Zeo sleep data shows improvements each week. I now love to sleep. It's an adventure. Without that ASV machine I'd still feel like I'm sleeping in a coffin underground wondering why I couldn't breathe.

I sleep well for 8 hours now and wake up maybe 1-2 times. Not bad. The only problem remaining is my REM sleep is twice as long as my light sleep. I dream too much and it causes a little too much brain activity for full rest. It's a minor thing, but I'm a perfectionist and want to keep at it until I can't fix anything else. Wish someone could tell me a way to REM less and light sleep more...

Tom

aevans410 wrote:My sleep study AHI was 130. My current AHI is down to less than 2 now, sometimes way less than 1.

So you stopped breathing for at least 1/3 of the time you were "sleeping" (calculating that each "stoppage" is the minimum 10 seconds required for scoring)! Wow!

Yours is pretty far up there, I think I was in the 45-50 range (severe classification).

Now my AHI at night is between 0.0 and 2.5, depending on how I sleep and whether I ate late or was up working late or whatever.

Two months in and I'm no longer falling asleep in chairs or having trouble staying awake if I'm not being mentally stimulated. Now I'm just tired on the days where I only got 4-5 hours of sleep, while other days I'm almost manic with all the extra energy.

SleepyToo2 wrote:

aevans410 wrote:My sleep study AHI was 130. My current AHI is down to less than 2 now, sometimes way less than 1.

So you stopped breathing for at least 1/3 of the time you were "sleeping" (calculating that each "stoppage" is the minimum 10 seconds required for scoring)! Wow!

My apnea is positional. This was on my back. Normally I slept on my side because there was no possibility of back sleeping because I'd always wake up gasping or my wife would "convince" me (usually by an elbow in my side) to turn to the side.

I would imagine that my apnea on my side would be way less severe, but I never made it to my side during the sleep study.

znurtdog wrote:Hi all. Finally got to see my sleep study results and I had a AHI of 88. From what I can tell, this is a very high number (bad, like in Golf) I am anxiously waiting for my machine and am actually a little nervous about sleeping with out one now. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

Welcome!

My AHI was 70 from the sleep study and I think my average event duration was around 29 seconds. It seemed to me that that meant I was pretty much not breathing half of the night. My oxygen level was dropping down to I think 85%.

On the positive side I'd say that us AHI "overachievers" are probably more compliant in CPAP usage. The worse you are pre-CPAP, the more likely you are to feel the improvement that comes from CPAP.

I wish I didn't need CPAP, but I'd NEVER voluntarily sleep without my machine. The one time I had to, I slept upright with a mountain of pillows in hopes I wouldn't wake up dead. Now I will say that I'm sure that is an over-reaction, and is only based on how much better I feel sleeping with my CPAP machine. The sleep tech that set me up with my equipment assured me that sleeping a couple of nights without CPAP because of bad congestion, etc will make me tired, but not do permanent harm. Still, I do everything I can to stay on the hose every night.

Good luck and I think you will be very pleased at the relief you find over time from CPAP.