[Diagnosis] What are these deep breaths and holds?

[phr00t]

I don't highly suspect I have apnea, but I took a home test "just to be sure". I didn't notice any drops in O2 overnight below 93% (most of the time around 95%). However, I do notice a handful of these events:

I wasn't able to post with a picture or link, so here is a link (remove the space):

http s://i.imgur.com/VeJwd53.png



Basically, I'm breathing normally... then I take in a deep breath, then pause/hold it for 15-20 seconds. My pulse bumps up right as I take the breath in and my O2 levels generally increase, then my breathing returns to normal before my O2 really falls much (if at all). I generally don't notice much pulse rate changes or movement (via thorax) after most of these events. Hypopnea, from what I understand, doesn't seem to have a big breath before it and has a significant associated O2 saturation drop, no?

Just trying to figure out if these are "normal" events after taking a deep breath or classified as hypopnea events. I'd say they happened ~11 times in the very broken sleep I got (very uncomfortable wearing the home sleeping kit). I probably only got maybe ~4 hours of solid sleep over the course of ~7.5 hours.

Any help is appreciated, thank you!

[clownbell]

The experts will be glad to help but they are data driven and need to see your OSCAR charts. Download the free OSCAR software (see link in black banner at top of the page) and post your charts per instructions.

[pholynyk]

I doubt that any of us are familiar with the data from home diagnostic kits.

All I can say is that something caused you to take a deep breath. After that what happened seems quite normal.

[phr00t]

I do not have a CPAP device. I just used a take-home ResMed sleep study device that I was able to extract EDF files from. I provided a screenshot URL of the questionable data. I couldn't find a way to process or display the data with OSCAR.

[kappa]

Looks like some sort of spontaneous arousal, probably as you rolled over/changed position, which often involves taking a deep breath (which increases SpO2, decreases CO2, with some lag, and a brief increase in HR), and then a pause in breathing (which a CPAP would label as CA / Central Apnea if it exceeded 10 seconds).

Doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary, particularly if they are infrequent and irregular.

edfbrowser is probably the best tool for looking at this, as you found, unless you have the associated vendor tool.

[Ockrocket]

I think Kappa is probably on the right path.. 

I was also going to suggest it may be a "rolling over" event as I've noticed I hold my breath when rolling over in bed, which is something I do often as I have bursitis in my shoulders which cause much pain and means I'm rolling from side to side often while in bed.

[Sleeprider]

I edited the first post to include the image. The respiratory wave shows a classic increasing flow limitation as indicated by a downward sloping inspiratory peak, leading to a recovery breath which is the definitions of RERA. Following the deep recovery breath, your respiratory needs were met, carbon dioxide was reduced and you simply slowed then stopped your breathing for what appears to be 15 seconds. This is not a breath-hold. There is a complete exhale from the recovery breath and the two small following breaths show normal expiration ahead of the breathing cessation. Most CPAP units will flag this as a central apnea.

We can tell from the graph that the resp thorax line does not show respiratory effort during the breathing cessation, so the event is not obstructive. Pulse rises rapidly with the arousal and falls back to normal or below during the CA event, and your SpO2 shows a dip during the recovery breath and a rapid rise following that breath. We can assume the CO2 is the inverse of the SpO2 and respiratory drive follows accordingly.

[wendigo550]

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to say thanks for this response sleeprider. I have learned a lot from your responses being on here.

[Xeros]

Sorry sleeprider if this is a dumb question but what would OP do to correct what you've pointed out? I'm guessing increase PS? Does anything need to be done? I have very similar things every night in my chart.