Should My "Centrals" Concern Me? Why or Why Not?

I am two and half months into diagnoses and CPAP therapy. I have much to be happy about. I am utterly compliant as a user, I sleep well, and feel better than I have in years. My AHI never goes above 5 and rarely above 3. But the "events" recorded and then deciphered by Sleepyhead software almost always shows my "CAs" or "Clear Airway event"s as my dominant type of event. These CAs last between 10 and 15 seconds, usually around 12 or 13 seconds. Should I worry? I know this is a question for a doctor but access to you all is much more convenient and affordable.

Could you please post a screen shot of the daily detailed report from SleepyHead for a typical night?

If the centrals (clear airway term in SleepyHead because SleepyHead was originally written for Respironics PR S1 users and Respironics calls them clear airway event) are perhaps clustered around awake or semi awake time...then no concern because they might be awake breathing irregularities being called a "central" and you were maybe awake...then for sure no concern. The machine doesn't know if you are awake or not. They might also be sleep onset centrals which are normal and not unusual and normally not a problem unless you have a bunch of them bouncing you out of sleep all night long and causing desats.

Most doctors won't get too excited about centrals averaging less than 5 per hour unless there is some sort of other problem going along with it.
If your overall AHI is pretty much always under 5.0....and even if if it were all centrals...they don't normally do anything.
Especially so if the AHI is half obstructive and half central.

Ok. Here is a typical night.

Interesting, much like my typical night, too. My sleep doctor wasn't too interested in that number of centrals...said that they could be from most any breathing interruption, like not breathing when you're rolling over, etc. And that they sometimes just stop. He also said not to worry about that number if I'm feeling fine, so I try not to *smile*. But I can have a night with an AHI of 2, all centrals, and maybe one or two OSA's, as easily as a night like last night with an AHI of 0.2.

This is all just peachy, I guess *smile*, who knows what's going on when you're sleeping?

The beginning of the night central as well as the end of the night very likely is possibly either an awake/semi awake central or maybe sleep onset or sleep stage transition (which are normal happenings for everyone and not just OSA people).

It doesn't really matter...there's not enough of them space out throughout the night to worry about. Real or not or awake or not...

I totally agree with Roger.

I used to have a good example from a report that was worth worrying about but I just checked and those image links are now broken.
If I can find another one I will share it.

Wonderful! I guess I'll just be happy for now.

We tend to panic when we see centrals because they're hard to eliminate and CPAP may make them worse. However, they're not necessarily more harmful than obstructive apneas. If they're not frequent enough or long enough, they may not do any harm.

However, if centrals are long enough or often enough, they can do you harm.

Stare at a clock. Take a deep breath, let it out, and then relax, but don't inhale for 10 to 15 seconds. Are you really concerned if this happens a few times in your sleep? Try the same thing, but watch the clock as you swallow to clear out saliva, etc. in your throat.

Also, zoom in on the airflow waveform and look at the breathing pattern around the CA. You may find you're actually breathing for part of that time period.

Does any of the software have a way to trim the first 10-30 minutes off the data to account for the nonsleeping irregularities? Or do you just ignore it?

I am new to this whole thing (and like OP, happy to report good compliance and great sleep). It does not take me long to fall asleep, but as I am just getting used to this I do spend a few minutes each night fiddling with mask fit, straps, hose placement and trying to tell my spouse that it is hard to talk with this thing on (which is hard to do because I have the thing on). She likes to chat at bedtime. That all adds up to funky data.

Thanks y'all!