AHI 131 !! - Help me understand my SleepStudy & CPAP results

Yeah.....I'm going to copy my SD card and mail them the duplicate SD card and keep the original SD card in my machine

Pugsy wrote: One thing I will ask because I had it happen to me. You don't happen to have a pet that sleeps with you that snores do you?
I had some really ugly snore reports like yours that would pop up some nights and have no snores other nights. Couldn't figure out what was going on until one night I realized the machine was hearing my little Pug dog snore when he was up on the pillow with his chin resting on my shoulder. So now I always ask because I know the machine can pick up other noise beside what we produce.

OMG I had wondered how the reports would pick up on the snoring!! LOL I haven't picked up my card reader yet, but when I start running my reports, I guess it will have a LOT of snoring on it, and it won't be mine that I'm referring to!! LOL Hubby snores like a freight train coming through town!! He needs a sleep study also, but we just can't afford it right now since I'm still unemployed.

Here's last night's stats.

Hey, that's pretty darn good report from last night.
Still too many snores but if you slept decent...not bad.
Do talk to your medical care team about just a little more EPAP and I think those snores will greatly improved also.

Pugsy wrote:Hey, that's pretty darn good report from last night.
Still too many snores but if you slept decent...not bad.
Do talk to your medical care team about just a little more EPAP and I think those snores will greatly improved also.

Yeah....I felt like I got a good nights sleep too!

Last night it "FELT" like I had a terrible night. My eyes (below my eyes) are puffy as hell. The "mask liner" I made out of a T-Shirt stretched out and came off my mask. So I was battling the mask. At one point last night, I awoke and my FF mask became a Nasal mask, as my mouth was below my FF mask. So this morning, I bring up my SleepHead stats....and my snores chart looks like this. WTF As you can see from lookking back at my posted charts...I've never seen such small and quick spikes. Pugsy will be happy with it

Needless to say, I'm gonna order a Pad-a-Cheek mask liner today as they seem to fit a variety of PR brand masks I might try.

See those large leak times...up around 95 and 100 L/min and over?
See the accompanying no snore flags at the same time?
The leaks were so bad your machine didn't even know that the snores were likely happening. I bet they were going on to some extent but the machine couldn't sense them due to leaks.

Wednesday night data....

Leaks still pretty large in places. It's a little improvement but not much. Did you sleep good though?

Is your computer a Mac? If not, maybe we should get you EncoreBasic so you could see how much time are a really in Large leak? Basic will flag it where SH just reports a number.

Have you tried a different mask by any chance?
Was this report last night after you implemented a homemade mask liner?

Pugsy wrote:Leaks still pretty large in places. It's a little improvement but not much. Did you sleep good though?

I have always been a "good sleeper". Fall asleep quickly...but then I usually go to sleep around midnight (unless i fall asleep first on couch watching TV). But last night it felt like a good night sleep. Eyes still a bit puffy.

Pugsy wrote:Is your computer a Mac? If not, maybe we should get you EncoreBasic so you could see how much time are a really in Large leak? Basic will flag it where SH just reports a number.

Yes...I'm a Mac user.

Pugsy wrote:Have you tried a different mask by any chance?

I haven't received the Amara mask the DME company mailed me yet.

Pugsy wrote:Was this report last night after you implemented a homemade mask liner?

Yes...Last night, I tried the wider homemade "T-Shirt mask liner" - I woke up around 3:30am and a part in the liner was moved off as well as my mask was off center - so it was leaking/whistling big time last night.

Okay... Keep working on the leaks...I would really like to see no more than maybe 30 minutes total above 90 L/min.

Your baseline leak number is shown right when you first start the machine and it is very short...I can't see the number but looks like around 65 L/min that line needs to be a lot flatter at least part of the night. You got close starting at 1:45.

Leaks and masks...the hardest part of all this therapy.

Here's Thursday nights data.

• Small amount of snores..... (or the leaks were too loud for machine to pick em up.)

• But look at that tight cluster problems I had around 4am!

Close up details of events at 4am:

Aliens. That's who gets blamed for oddball stuff.
I assume you don't remember an awakening at 4 AM.
It might be REM stage sleep super duper strong events needing more pressure...or supine sleeping super duper events needing more pressure or combination of both.
This is where it would have been nice if you had Auto adjusting machine to see if the machine would have increased pressure trying to prevent those little buggers.
REM sleep or supine sleep....it is common for some people to simply need more pressure to effectively prevent the apnea events.

Yes, some of the time the snores are absent because of leaks most likely. When you see leak go over 100 L/min the machine's ability to sense anything is sorely impacted. Not just snores...we can't trust the data with that amount of leak.

Pugsy wrote:I assume you don't remember an awakening at 4 AM.
It might be REM stage sleep super duper strong events needing more pressure...or supine sleeping super duper events needing more pressure or combination of both.

Don't remember waking up...since CPAP I look at the clock when I wake up, so I can look at my charts in the morning. I can't sleep on my back and have been sleeping on my side since CPAP. If I do anything during sleep, it would be stomach sleeping with my face/cheek buried into my pillow. I miss the way I used to be able to sleep. I use very old broken down type pillows - as they are shape formable (Bean bag style - if that makes sense). I can shape it so it doesn't mess with my FF mask. I've been doing CPAP pillow research (looking at older threads) and it looks like the Regenesis/Buckwheat/Sobakawa are my style of CPAP type pillows. I'm going to go to BBB this weekend and see/try em out some of those styles. Those Memory foam style pillows are too hard for me.

That cluster was probably related to REM stage sleep. I happen to have first hand experience with REM stage sleep stuff myself.
I did do some experiments a long time ago (when I first started therapy) with staying totally on my side and I still would see some times when I needed much higher pressures to prevent the clusters and some nights the pressures barely moved around.
I don't know why some REM events need so much more pressure to prevent their formation but it does happen.
That's why I use auto adjusting pressures. I never know if I am going to have a night where I need a lot more pressure or not.
There's no pattern to it that I have been able to see.
If I was tied to a fixed pressure machine like you are...I would have to come up with some sort of compromise.
You may eventually need to do that yourself. Either use higher pressures all night to prevent the sometimes need for higher pressures or maybe compromise and just let a few clusters slide by and use lower pressure all night...or maybe use a tiny bit more pressure and hope the clusters aren't quite so bad.

Regardless...the leaks need to be stabilized first before we do much of anything.

Bed pillows....I have a Regenesis Buckwheat pillow that I have used for years. I like the support for my neck and the ability to move the hulls around to make things "just right".
I have tried the Soakawa Cloud pillow but the little light weight ball thingies didn't stay in place like I wished they would.
For me it wasn't as comfortable as the buckwheat.
Bed pillow preference is just as individualized as mask preference.