[Diagnosis] how to tell if my ca apneas are positional

[Scimorelli]

I noticed on Oscar that most of my apneas are CA or central apneas.  Reading through some posts I found that they may be positional.  What do I look for in oscar to determine if it positional.

[SarcasticDave94]

You would see a section of events along the timeline that are clustered, one after the other.

Attach an OSCAR chart and let's see what you're facing.

PS Positional Apnea may or may not be showing CA flags. Positional Apnea pattern should most always include some Obstructive and possibly Hypopnea.

What did your detailed PSG sleep study report about Central Apnea?

[Scimorelli]

here is last nights oscar.  I will ask Dr for sleep study results

[SarcasticDave94]

Take a look at your OSCAR in that left panel. See how it cuts some settings off there at the bottom. Can you scroll up and find Trigger. What's it set at?

Go into the clinical menu, find the Trigger setting and set it to High unless it's there already. In that case go to Trigger very high.

You're on a VAuto, which has a Trigger setting, which may be edited to assist with the CA, as I started to say above.

Also you may want to edit EPAP 4 to maybe 6 or 7 to get you a bit more base air.

[Scimorelli]

trigger was set to high, I set it to very high last night but it felt weird so I lowered it back to high about 8pm.  There is also a cycle setting where I made the same change to very high which I lowered back to high.  Maybe it was cycle that made it feel weird.   For tonight I will raise the epap to 7 and see if it gives me aerophagia which is why I had to switch to bipap from cpap.  Also I will raise trigger to very high but keep cycle to high. What about TI range (currently set to .3s-2.0) and PS (set to 3.0)?

[Crimson Nape]

Rarely do you ever change the Cycle setting.
- Red

[SarcasticDave94]

Correct. Cycle Medium will probably be OK for you. For me, nah I had to try changing mine because I've got a complex sort of thing. Complex Apnea and COPD, and VAuto not cutting it here.

Unless you have a high level, predominant Central Apnea on the test, this VAuto will be just fine.

[Scimorelli]

If you are saying that according to the oscar screenprint, that I do not have positional apnea, is it safe to assume that I have central apnea, since most of my apnea's are in the purple "clear airway" column? 

My sleep test was an at home sleep study so can I assume that my doctor doesn't even know I have central apnea? 

I've read central apnea is rare.  If I do have central apnea what setting should I set mode to instead of vauto (in you last response)?

Also I tried setting min epap to 7, then 5, but it caused areophagia so I changed it back to 4.

[SarcasticDave94]

The majority of sleep doctors are Central Apnea blind. It'll be there, but they don't want to treat them.

In all honesty, most people have a few Central Apnea already. If however the CA were a lot on the diagnostic test, this would indicate another therapy than plain CPAP may be needed.

This is why you need to request the detailed report. You need to see what it found. Did your home test have you wear an effort belt for the test duration?

VAuto can still be useful even with Central Apnea, again for most users. We'll need to know that sleep study data.

[Scimorelli]

The sleep test had a thing taped to my chest for snoring which connected to a wristband and connected to a pulse oximeter on my finger.

Are you saying we can't tell by the stats on Oscar?