A question about CPAP and snores

Luthie2006 wrote:Please correct me if I am wrong: I had thought that the purpose of the CPAP machine and therapy was to eliminate all snoring? Or does the mask and air catch the snore and then push more air in?

Incorrect.
Are you thinking that cpap machines are supposed to totally eradicate everything? They aren't expected to do that. That's an unrealistic expectation and causes a lot of people unnecessary stress over their "numbers" and is part of the reason docs tell people not to obsess over numbers.

The primary goal is to keep OSA related events below a set "acceptable" level AND promote good quality sleep.
Numbers don't mean squat if a person doesn't sleep well or only get 3 or 4 hours of sleep or has highly fragmented sleep.

We don't expect to totally eliminate anything....besides sometimes the machine reports things that aren't real...like my Pug dog snores or awake breathing irregularities or whatever. They aren't perfect at what they record.

Thanks Pugsy. I thought CPAP was supposed to eliminate all snores. I did feel myself snort on my back last night and dozed back off. I hope the air came in and helped that. So people still snore with the CPAP? Interesting.

Luthie2006 wrote:Thanks Pugsy. I thought CPAP was supposed to eliminate all snores. I did feel myself snort on my back last night and dozed back off. I hope the air came in and helped that. So people still snore with the CPAP? Interesting.

Yes, people can still snore....sometimes.... If the pressure is suboptimal they might snore a lot. If it's just a random snore here or there then it really isn't a big deal.
To totally eradicate everything would mean people would have to use a lot more pressure all night long and that comes with its own set of problems. Let's use 20 cm cpap pressure all night long and blow the airway totally open so there is zero chance of the airway collapsing.... who in their right mind would want to do that just to prevent a handful of snores.

Snores themselves are just warning signs of the airway trying to collapse...it doesn't always mean that it is going to collapse any further and/or collapse to the extent that a flagged apnea event materializes.
If a snore doesn't grow up to be a hyponea or OA then it really isn't that big of a deal but when we see a lot of snores there's the potential for more of them to grow up to become a full grown Hyponea or OA and that's not so good.
Also sometimes snores disrupt sleep and that's not good either.

It's like with everything else on these software reports...an occasional whatever is no big deal but when we see large numbers of anything and sleep quality is messed with then we sit up and take notice and decide if it warrants more than just looking at.

Luthie2006 wrote:Please correct me if I am wrong: I had thought that the purpose of the CPAP machine and therapy was to eliminate all snoring? Or does the mask and air catch the snore and then push more air in?

auto paps won't necessarily because they try to supply the minimum pressure needed, so there will be occasional apneas and snores, at which point the pressure goes up a bit to limit them.

if you have a pressure too low on a fixed unit, you'll get snores, apneas, hypops, etc.

Pugsy wrote:I can't seem to find my reports where I caught the Pug snores and if I do I will share them. My machine flagged them (and they are pretty impressive looking) but didn't respond to them with an increase in pressure when in auto mode.

That was back when you were using a PR System One, wasn't it? And pre-SleepyHead?

I wonder if all of the dog's snores were scored as VS2s, which do NOT result in pressure increases on the PR System One Auto machines. It's only the VS1s that lead to pressure increases ...

the machine seemed to think that even though it was sensing something it called snores it didn't try to prevent them with an increase in pressure at all. Now on occasion I have see some real snores and the machine responded to those. So the machine in my case could at least decide if the snores warranted a response or not.

If we're still talking about PR System One equipment, I bet your real snores get scored as VS1s and the dog's snores get scored as VS2's.

And as near as I can remember, the VS1 snores don't necessarily even show up on the Encore Event Table, but the V2 snores do. The VS1 snores do show up as flags in the Encore Wave Flow data ....

robysue wrote: I wonder if all of the dog's snores were scored as VS2s, which do NOT result in pressure increases on the PR System One Auto machines. It's only the VS1s that lead to pressure increases ...

I've wondered what the difference in a vs1 and a vs2 is... ?

palerider wrote:

robysue wrote: I wonder if all of the dog's snores were scored as VS2s, which do NOT result in pressure increases on the PR System One Auto machines. It's only the VS1s that lead to pressure increases ...

I've wondered what the difference in a vs1 and a vs2 is... ?

No one knows. JediMark discovered this while writing SleepyHead. I've done a fair amount of digging into my reports and others and at one point put a lot of what I'd discovered in this post:
Re: Pugsy's Pointers...SH Tutorial: Snoring

robysue wrote:That was back when you were using a PR System One, wasn't it? And pre-SleepyHead?

I don't think it was pre SH but I can't swear to it. I have slept too many nights since then and since it wasn't important I sort of didn't put it on my list of things to try to remember.
If I can find those reports I will check further but it was an Encore report I had in Photobucket...of that I am sure but that doesn't mean I didn't have a SH report available. I looked through over 200 images in Photobucket the other night and missed it. Just haven't had time to look again. I know it's there somewhere.

If I find it later I will post it just to show it off. It was really rather funny looking. One or 2 hours of solid bars of snores.
I am pretty sure it was with the PR S1 550 machine too.

Lily the Bengal cat whooped Sarge's little pug butt and he started sleeping elsewhere so I don't have any recent examples to look for. She kept scaring the crap out of him and he would dance around all over me instead of sleeping quietly so he was disrupting my sleep....so he got to sleep elsewhere since he wouldn't be still.

Pugsy wrote:If I find it later I will post it just to show it off. It was really rather funny looking. One or 2 hours of solid bars of snores.

perhaps you should fix him up with one of your spare machines...

palerider wrote:perhaps you should fix him up with one of your spare machines...

Too late. The damage has already been done. He is a sweet loving little dog and loves me to death but he is definitely not going to win the smartest dog on the block award.
My husband says he is brain dead. Not true of course but we refer to him as our mentally challenged pet/child...as I think of all my pets as my kids and spoil them rotten.

He still doesn't snore as much as the very first Pug in my life did. That dog definitely needed cpap...
Now this one...just sometimes...probably positional. as he doesn't snore all the time.