Please explain variable breathing

Bellcrest · Post by **Bellcrest** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 5:16 am

Now that I have discovered the aura/headrest, I find my AHI down to 1.4 with leak rates very very low.

What is strange to me is variable breathing....what exactly is it and in my case, the better I sleep the lower my varieable breathing % is. I notice on some peoples stats this is not the case.

I have (according to sleep doc) the strange ability to fall asleep quickly and go almost immediately into stage 3 and 4 sleep. I have severe OSA with 106 AHI untreated, so the treatment is certainly working for me.

When I asked the doc what variable breathing is, his answer to me was, I don't know,,,,,,how do you feel.

Anyone have any insights into what variable breathing is? I have read the info in Dereks MyEncore instructions.

TerryB · Post by **TerryB** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 7:18 am

My GUESS is that "variable breathing " means that the patern is changing over a short period of time. The machine senses the inhale and exhale pressure change and charts the interval. When you are restless and moving around, you hold your breath while you make major moves like a roll over. When you have REM sleep you are active incertian parts of your mind/body. These variations are remembered as variable breathing. If you have a lot you're not resting, If you have none, you might be dead!

You can't make them go away entirely IMHO.

TerryB

Bellcrest · Post by **Bellcrest** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 7:21 am

So if I understand what you are saying.....less is best?

Or is it different for different people. According to my doc......How you feel is the important thing....and i feel GREAT these days.

Last night...AHA 1.4 and variable breathing of only 3.2%

Goofproof · Post by **Goofproof** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:11 am

Mine is 36 and I feel good too. I guess it is one of the misteries of the world. Like Anti-Matter, Matter, and Don't Matter! Jim

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:22 am

That's fantastic. I say, don't mess with success. Variable breathing is a phrase coined by Respironics and used by them exclusively.
This is from the Respironics literature:

Breathing pattern recognition ensures the right therapy. As impressive as the Proactive Algorithm therapy is, it would be useless without the Breathing Pattern Recognition ability of the REMstar Auto with C-Flex. Breathing Pattern Recognition analyzes the shape curve of a patient’s airflow signal based on four parameters (roundness, flatness, peak and shape). It can then seek out instances of flow limitation and respond accordingly – either by cycling through the Pcrit, Popt and Ptherapy modes or by triggering the REMstar Auto’s secondary analysis.

The secondary analysis determines the occurrence of breathing problems like apnea, hypopnea, snoring, variable breathing and elevated leak levels based on their effects on the patient’s airflow signal. Once it detects one of these events, the secondary analysis immediately begins to ramp up the pressure level to a point that eliminates or compensates for the event.

Since they lump 'variable breathing' in with 'breathing problems', my assumption is that their assumption is that less is better.

Goofproof · Post by **Goofproof** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:36 am

Bellcrest wrote:So if I understand what you are saying.....less is best?

Or is it different for different people. According to my doc......How you feel is the important thing....and i feel GREAT these days.

Last night...AHA 1.4 and variable breathing of only 3.2%

It looks like our AHI is close to normal, and we both feel good (from CPAP), and my Variable breathing is 10 times higher than yours, It must belong in the Anti-Matter group.

ozij · Post by **ozij** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 11:14 am

viewtopic.php?p=22756#22756

derek wrote:<snip>
From the Respironics Patent:

"... The Auto-CPAP... relies on the ability to trend the steady rhythmic breath patterns associated with certain stages of sleep. When a patient is awake, in REM sleep, or in distress, breathing breathing tends to be more erratic, and the Auto-CPAP trending becomes unstable. It is, therefore, important to interrupt the Auto-CPAP if the patient's breathing becomes too variable...."
Once the APAP has decided you are in "variable breathing", the actions it takes are quite complex (according to this patent).

I have no idea what a good value is. I average around 33% according to MyEncore.

I simply take the variable breathing as a measure of how "peaceful" your night was. In other words its a measure of how much of the night you were not having slow steady breaths,

derek

And then there's this thread also:
Variable Breathing

O.

Bellcrest · Post by **Bellcrest** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 11:46 am

Goofproof wrote:
Bellcrest wrote:So if I understand what you are saying.....less is best?

Or is it different for different people. According to my doc......How you feel is the important thing....and i feel GREAT these days.

Last night...AHA 1.4 and variable breathing of only 3.2%
It looks like our AHI is close to normal, and we both feel good (from CPAP), and my Variable breathing is 10 times higher than yours, It must belong in the Anti-Matter group.

After reading ther links ozij provided I think that perhaps Goofproof, might have something there.....looks like if we both feel good at the numbers we are getting then hey guess it doesn't really matter.

PS. Your excel spread sheet is a great tool. Thanks for sharing.

Please explain variable breathing

Please explain variable breathing

less is best?

Re: less is best?

Re: less is best?