Any reason to worry?

[Marillion]

if your current dr. won't order an auto cpap for you.  take your test results to another dr. and get a second opinion.

Great suggestion here...

[mltam]

if your current dr. won't order an auto cpap for you.  take your test results to another dr. and get a second opinion.

Great suggestion here...

Yes, that's what I'll do. Already have two appointments.   
I don't have the real data from the home study, only summaries over the whole night. I'll try to go to the lab and get more detailed results.

And I hope the doctor(s) will accept looking at results gathered by a non-medical device (the O2 vibe...)

[ajack]

the overnight sleep study would be enough. It shows high apnea.

[mltam]

I have another question: I can see the report about the home study my doctor got. It contains 11 measurements:
----
total time: 531 min,
sleep: 466 min,
AHI (3% desat) 7/h,
supine: 32/h
non-supine: 5/h
baseline O2: 93%
minimum O2: 83%
time below 90%: 10min
time below 85%: <1 min
heart rate 36-94, mean 59
---
no graphs, nothing else.

Now, I can see two facts: 1. this does not look like bad sleep apnea when sleeping on the side, 2. This is not very different from the results I showed above, which I would consider not very good.

It seems the problem is that the doctor only looked at the summary, and not at the raw graphs.

My question is: is this normal? Do sleep doctors usually only look at the summary data, and not the actual results?

A second obvious mistake my doctor did is that he did not prescribe another sleep study to test how I do when I do sleep only on my side.

I'm quite upset, because if I hadn't bought the little wrist measurement device for 200$ to check things, I would have just gone on to happily sleep on my side for several more years, continuing to ruin my brain and other organs.

[quiescence at last]

I am glad enough little things continued to nag you just enough to seek a solid answer. your future does look so much better after this (admittedly frustrating) kick start. I hope you'll be able to use the wonderful 200$ device to assure you once the treatment begins.

QAL

[Hydrangea]

Please do take Marillon's advice.

My results were similar to ypurs, but even more mild. My dr had the same recommendation as yours; and he told me to think about things for a month. I told him I had nothing further to think about: nothing in my sleep is going to change in a month of just thinking, considering I'd been having these symptoms for decades. I insisted on *treatment*, so he obliged. And my auto cpap has CHANGED MY LIFE!!!!!!

[dmeRT]

based off of those results and your symptoms I think you should have been started on auto cpap or further tested in lab. But...i'm not your dr.

[stanleydean]

Hi mltam and welcome to the forum.This is where you will find a lot of good stuff.

Your post has already resulted in some very good advice all of which you should give serious consideration to. You have something going on health wise that will only get worse and eventually cause significant health issues if not properly treated. If you can convince your doctor to prescribe an APAP machine that is SleepyHead compatible that will put you on the road to evaluating and treating your apnea.If it's simple apnea without complications from central apnea events or other complications and you will post data you will receive strong support here and will be on your way to effective treatment.

Many of us have had starts similar to yours and have made good progress in our treatment by participating in this forum. Wishing you much success in your journey.

Stan

[mltam]

OK, I went to my Doctor and a new Doctor.

First, an interesting comment. I got the full data for my home sleep study. The summary said 32/h while on back, 5/h when on side. So the Doctor said "when on side all is OK". But when I look at the data, there is also another possible interpretation: I seem to have apneas when in REM. I also turn back and forth to back and side when in REM. The rest of the night I sleep on my side. So it could be that sleeping on back for me has nothing to do with apneas, it simply is that I'm only on my back during REM, and that's when I stop breathing. This would also explain why things don't get much better if at all when I use when or two backpacks during the night.

Back to my results. I continued to measure, and pretty much always have the same 2-3 episodes of going up and down in O2 saturation, the lows go to 85% but as low as 80 or 78, each one lasts a minute or a bit more. and the episode lasts 20-30 minutes.

My original Doctor said I shouldn't worry, all is OK.

The second Doctor said he doesn't think these episodes are OK. He said that I could try a CPAP to see if things get better.

One thing he said is that because I seem to also have central apnea, he thinks APAP will make things worse, so he gave me a prescription for CPAP. 

But I've read here that APAP can simulate CPAP, and that to avoid problems with central apnea one just needs to limit the max. (Remember that I live at high altitude - 7000ft, if that has an effect).

On the other hand, it seems that some of the night I'm OK, and some I stop breathing, so maybe it would be good that the machine adjusts to that...

Any opinions?

[DavePaulson]

One thing he said is that because I seem to also have central apnea, he thinks APAP will make things worse, so he gave me a prescription for CPAP.

Most APAP can be set in CPAP mode and function exactly as a CPAP.