ASV and HYP

Greetings all,

I am coming up on my 1 month anniversary of switching to ASV and have become much more comfortable with treatment than when first starting this journey. In general, I am pleased with my numbers with the exception of hypopnea. Average CA=1.0, OA=0.7, HYP=3.4. AHI=5.1.

Should I be concerned about the hypopnea or ignore it? Realizing the goal is to have an AHI< 5, the numbers would be far better if HYP was more inline with the other events.

Or am I paying too much attention to the data?

Thanks for you thoughts.

- Flappy

Uncle Flapp wrote:Or am I paying too much attention to the data?

You've failed to mention the most critical data point of all: How are you feeling these days?

If you're feeling much better in terms of waking up feeling rested and having enough energy to get through the day, then giving it more time is reasonable. Given some more time, the number of hypopneas may come down some more.

If you're still feeling crappy in spite of the pretty decent numbers, it's worth letting the sleep doc know that (a) you're still feeling crappy and (b) the machine is still reporting a fair number of hypopneas and that the overall AHI is just barely above 5.

robysue wrote:How are you feeling these days?

An interesting question of which I have been giving a lot of thought. Answer is, I am not sure. I had untreated severe apnea for years - perhaps decades. Despite having an AHI of 84 and oxygen sats down in the low 60's, I usually felt ok - it was the status quo. I am not sure that today I feel any better but I can say that I feel worse after bad night on the machine than I ever did untreated. I suppose this is my body's way of adjusting to the new norm and it will still be a while before I reap the full benefits.

I find .. in my own experience .. that if all the other numbers are good, but hypopneas remain high .. increasing the pressure support by 0.5 can help decrease the hypopneas. As robysue mentions, you will probably see a continued decrease in hypopneas as your body adjusts to the ASV therapy. It normally takes several months for your body to fully adjust.