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

Amazing what fixing a leak will do in terms of therapy effectiveness isn't it?
Good job on last night's report. I would be doing the happy feet dance for that one.

Pugsy wrote:Amazing what fixing a leak will do in terms of therapy effectiveness isn't it?
Good job on last night's report. I would be doing the happy feet dance for that one.

And just imagine trying to figure that out without efficacy data. Amazing change.

Pugsy wrote:Amazing what fixing a leak will do in terms of therapy effectiveness isn't it?
Good job on last night's report. I would be doing the happy feet dance for that one.

I know, huh! Just want to see this more consistently for a couple more nights.
Probably one of the few times you can actually see some accurate data on me. Now if I hadn't had that "alien visit" at 2:30am....it would have been an almost perfect night (at least for me)!

I've been lurking here and following your progress. That is awesome! Here's hoping this trend continues.

Sleep Well!

Kenwood wrote:I know, huh! Just want to see this more consistently for a couple more nights.
Probably one of the few times you can actually see some accurate data on me. Now if I hadn't had that "alien visit" at 2:30am....it would have been an almost perfect night (at least for me)!

Aliens love to mess up an otherwise perfect night...just laugh at them.
I suspect that what happened is that the events likely caused a little mini arousal to a semi wake state (you probably don't remember a thing) and you have some PB and clutter from some semi awake breathing confusing the machine.

But now you know why I kept harping on fix the damn leaks....
Gotta have leaks controlled to evaluate anything with any accuracy.

Pugsy wrote:

Kenwood wrote:I know, huh! Just want to see this more consistently for a couple more nights.
Probably one of the few times you can actually see some accurate data on me. Now if I hadn't had that "alien visit" at 2:30am....it would have been an almost perfect night (at least for me)!

Aliens love to mess up an otherwise perfect night...just laugh at them.
I suspect that what happened is that the events likely caused a little mini arousal to a semi wake state (you probably don't remember a thing) and you have some PB and clutter from some semi awake breathing confusing the machine.

But now you know why I kept harping on fix the damn leaks....
Gotta have leaks controlled to evaluate anything with any accuracy.

I've been working very hard at these leaks too. Just bought a Mirage Quattro FF mask from McDover, so I will finally be able to see which mask is better. I'll still keep on the Sleep Study Dr/Ins Co/DME....but I'm tired of waiting, so I bought one on my own. Since I got it from McDover, it wasn't much more than what my co-pay would have been.

NotLazyJustTired wrote:I've been lurking here and following your progress. That is awesome! Here's hoping this trend continues.

Sleep Well!

Thanks! It's been a journey for sure...but I've had a great guide and mentor in Pugsy!!! I think once I get the Quattro mask, I'll hopefully see what my real stats should look like.

2nd night with lower large leak numbers (below 70 the whole night), although not a great night with a higher AHI of 8.12 with a couple of bad clusters - at one point my AHI was up to 28 around 2:20am! Even had really, really, bad disturbing dreams too.

Wednesday nite

Want to bet that those clusters were REM stage sleep related???

I think you are going to end up like me....sometimes you are going to need a lot more pressure during REM stage sleep and sometimes not. We already know you don't sleep on your back..so that is eliminated.

In my case when I was on APAP machine I had my minimum at 10 and maximum at 20.
Sometimes I would have brief periods in the night where my pressure would go to 18 and 19 but stay around 12 or so the rest of the night. Sometimes I would have nights where the pressure barely moved off of 10.
Why the big difference? I don't know. I did some experimentation where I built a wall to keep me on my side and that didn't stop the max from hitting the high numbers. All I could come up with was that sometimes in REM I just had some extra stubborn and hard to prevent, events.

If you have more nights like last night...and less like the night before then you definitely are going to need more pressure during parts of the night. How much more we don't know yet. Hopefully not much more.
This is where the Auto BiPap would come in handy. Let it go up to where it is needed that short while and come back down the rest of the time. You are still going to need at least these EPAP and IPAP settings but at least you wouldn't have to use 20 EPAP.. all the time.
Regarding the DME and/or doctor dismissing the Auto need...I wonder if they were thinking about the ASV model biPap that auto adjusts...that would be the model 950...all we are wanting is for you to have the model 750/760 instead of the 650/660 (I forget which) that you have now.

Another pretty good lower mask leak night, there was a period that shot up above the 100 L/min level, but for only about 30 mins before I adjusted the leaks. Had a little issue with eye leaks, but I was tired last night - falling asleep early on the couch and then even going to bed very early. Only one snore session and a couple events with an overall AHI of 1.14 - but that number is a little suspect with 30 mins above major leak. Those events after 5:20am should be ignored as my alarm going off then I hit snooze a couple times each morning. My number sure do fluctuate from night to night.

Thursday night's stats:

Although the overall number may not be reliable because of your period of high leak, there's real progress during your extended stretch with a lower leak.

Glad to see you're having success (I've been reading along for quite a while).

I doubt the 30 minutes or so time in large leak would have made any huge impact on the AHI even if there were some events that got missed in the scoring department. We would also be removing the events flagged at the end of the night too because we know you were semi awake.
I would put last night's report in the "success" file.

The leaks waking you up though...that's not good. That disrupts sleep and fragmented sleep is definitely unwanted.
I wish I could help you more with the mask issues but I have never used a full face mask.

Do you think you might be able to breathe through your nose enough to keep your mouth shut? As in try a mask with less surface area to deal with??? Don't be afraid of the nasal pillow or nasal masks just because of your pressure needs.

Pugsy wrote:The leaks waking you up though...that's not good. That disrupts sleep and fragmented sleep is definitely unwanted. I wish I could help you more with the mask issues but I have never used a full face mask.

The leaks woke me up cause it was shooting air into my eye. But just last night, the wifey said when she came home and went to bed...she had to reach over and check to see if I was in bed as it was soo quite in the bedroom. She said you machine was very quite....which meant she was used to hearing the sound of my mask leaks.

I should be getting that Mirage Quattro FF mask from McDover I bought in the mail shortly - so I want to experiment with that mask since when I was testing it at 20 EPAP at the sleep study place, I had super lower mask leak numbers.

Pugsy wrote:Do you think you might be able to breathe through your nose enough to keep your mouth shut? As in try a mask with less surface area to deal with??? Don't be afraid of the nasal pillow or nasal masks just because of your pressure needs.

Hmmmmm....I have thought about nasal/pillows. I think my nasal issues have improved dramatically since being on CPAP. I think I've been breathing through my nose almost every night. Even during the day, I've never been able to breath through my nose as much as since I've been on CPAP, with a couple periods of congestion. I will bring this up (added to my list) with my Sleep Doctor during my Monday appt. Since I wear a FF mask....I don't know if I keep my mouth closed when I sleep. I know my mouth/tongue is very dry sometimes in the morning.

Also of note - My sleep doctor's office called me yesterday to confirm my Monday appt...they seemed quite annoyed that I had NOT received the Auto BiPap machine they wrote an RX nor the Mirage Quattro FF mask they wrote 5 weeks ago. I do know that when I followed up with my DME last week, they said they never got the RX faxed to em. My Sleep Study Dr Office re-faxed it to them, but I will follow up with them later today. As I need to make sure they fax the results from my SD card to my Doctor so she can review my data before my Monday night appt.

You are doing great man! I am so happy for you! I expect soon to be reading your story on the "Success stories" sticky thread. Keep it up!

Drowsy Dancer wrote:Although the overall number may not be reliable because of your period of high leak, there's real progress during your extended stretch with a lower leak.

Glad to see you're having success (I've been reading along for quite a while).

NotLazyJustTired wrote:You are doing great man! I am so happy for you! I expect soon to be reading your story on the "Success stories" sticky thread. Keep it up!

Thanks for the support and following my progress!!!
Since I had such a severe sleep study number AHI of 131, I know I can help those that are scared of their results with their high number. (Hey, at least it's not as bad as Kenwood's ). Plus for each active poster on a forum, there are a 100 lurkers that are just reading along. My thread as 3,100 views so far. I've had a couple decades of forum experience, even helped start and run a forum (over 60,000 posts).

I like to feel I'm helping others (with my mentor - Pugsy), as they see what my CPAP experience starting out was like.