AHI spike

[Carole Pruett]

I have been using my bipap successfully for about 6 months with AHI below 5.  About September they started climbing and are now back to where I started in the 30 per hour.  I'm not aware of leakage, but I'm having to use more pills because I wake up so often.  My doctor doesn't understand what has happened and has no suggestions.  Do you have thoughts?

[chill]

Welcome!

Is the increase due to obstructive or central apnea?  Which pills are you taking?  Some medications can increase central apnea.  

Have you changed sleeping position?  Diet?  Medication?  Stress?  Anything else that might affect sleep quality?

[Walla Walla]

First Welcome to Apnea Board. Without any data to go by it's a total guess. But if I had to guess your getting CA events from the drugs and/or Bipap pressure support is too wide. The best thing you can do is download sleepyhead and post your charts here so members can give you solid input.

Follow the links just below and again Welcome.

[DeepBreathing]

G'day Carole. Welcome to Apnea Board.

Sleep apnea science is very much a numbers game. And many of us here are technical geeks of one kind or another - engineers, scientists, IT people (but no sleep doctors). So we will ask you for a lot of details and especially we will need to see the charts in order to give you some well-reasoned advice.

First thing we need to know is exactly what model bipap you have. There will be a label on the underside of the machine which gives the model number. Remove the humidifier before you turn the machine over.

Then we need to know your exact settings. A bipap machine will have at least an EPAP and IPAP pressure, maybe also a pressure support (PS). You can download the clinical manual via the link at the top of this page.

Can you tell us why you have a bipap and not just an ordinary CPAP / APAP. Do you have other relevant conditions such as a lung disease? Did you have any changes in your life around the time the AHI started going up? Any injury or disease, new drug treatment etc?

Last (for now) download and install the free #SleepyHead software. (It's free but a donation to the author will help him continue development of the program). Once you've got #SleepyHead installed, send us a screenshot of your daily screen. That will allow us to provide some detailed advice.

Sorry to lay so many questions on you, but we do need to get a full picture of what's going on- otherwise we would just be guessing.

[Gideon]

Carole, welcome to the Apnea Board.

What would really help us is for you to Download SleepyHead and post your Daily charts.  
You posted a Pressure range, but not your Pressure Support Range,  Also specifically what mode you are using your BiPAP in.

Your daily charts are the record of what has happened during your night down to a breath by breath detailed view if needed.  This is the info that let's us see what is happening.
It would also help us to know why your are using a BiPAP instead of a Auto CPAP.

The PR machines respond to events fairly slowly and as such need the pressures, especially the minimum set close to your therapeutic value to control your OSA, If something has changed your OSA to require higher pressures than before it is possible that the required increase is too much for your machine to get to quickly enough to prevent events from occurring thus increasing your AHI.

Until your status changes to "Member" (shortly after 4 posts) post your dailys with a space in the URL such as  "htt p:/IMGUR.com/xxxxxx.png"
See my signature for how to post the data and pay attention to the section on organization because all the charts are not as important as others.

Fred

[trish6hundred]

Hi Carole Pruet,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
Hang in there for more answers to your questions, good luck with CPAP therapy.

[Kryogen]

I have been using my bipap successfully for about 6 months with AHI below 5.  About September they started climbing and are now back to where I started in the 30 per hour.  I'm not aware of leakage, but I'm having to use more pills because I wake up so often.  My doctor doesn't understand what has happened and has no suggestions.  Do you have thoughts?

 Also, your sleep pills are CNS depressants and they tend to reduce your muscle tone and make apnea worse.