Does the machine tell the truth?

[duece12345]

My resmed machine (and sleepyhead) says I get 3 or less AHI a night consistently.  However I wake up every morning feeling like I just got beat up.  I just had my second sleep study done and confirmed my mod/severe apnea.  Should I trust that my machine is working and correcting the apnea?

[OpalRose]

Never trust anything without seeing some data.  It does sound like your settings could be tweaked a little.  

Download OSCAR software and follow the directions in the links below in my signature line. Take a Screenshot of the daily page and use the attachment feature to post data here.

[SarcasticDave94]

To a degree yes that could be true. However AHI isn't all there is to good rest. The numbers are important, but not as much as how better you're feeling for the therapy. I'm guessing you've possibly got some other aspect disrupting sleep, and it could still be apnea related. There could be indicators to the disruptions if you'd like to post OSCAR data, assuming your machine is data and OSCAR capable. Check my signature for chart organization if you do post it.

[harrywr2]

Your profile shows a minimum pressure of 4.2. Many adults feel 'starved for air' at anything less than 6.

As others have said downloading Oscar and posting charts is a good idea.

[3rdMarDiv]

Like SD said, You can't look solely at the machine for evidence of good or bad sleep, only good or bad therapy. There are millions of people who sleep poorly and have and never will be on CPAP.

I was in the same boat you are and felt that since my AHI was finally good that my sleep quality must be good. Not so..!

If you become familiar with your machine use then you now need to research better sleeping in general. there is likely as much to learn there as there is here. Study "Improving Sleep Quality".

Do you check your SP02 levels? Pick up a Pulse Oximeter like a ZacUrate and do so. A low SP02 will be greatly improved with CPAP Therapy, but until it improves your life in general will be lacking in overall health.

Post some charts and the experts here take a look at them.

[Hydrangea]

Sometimes one little tweak can make a gigantic difference.

I am primarily a DreamStation user (since that's what I've had since the beginning, and it works well for me), but I bought a ResMed Airsense 10 Autoset for travel.

With my ResMed, I get a lower AHI (.6 on the ResMed vs 1.2 on DreamStation). BUT with my ResMed I was getting all of my sleep apnea symptoms back.

I pondered if ResMed's aggressive algorithm might be too aggressive for me (and be disturbing my sleep). Then I found out that setting can be adjusted. I switched my ResMed to "Soft" response, and sure enough that solved the problem!

So... even though my AHI remains the same with my ResMed, my quality of sleep has been improved since switching to the "Soft" setting, and thus my quality of life has improved.

As far as if the machine lies... I don't think it lies. Rather I think it may not be telling you what you're thinking you're hearing. A good AHI doesn't necessarily mean your quality of sleep has improved. So experiment with your settings (soft response, EPR, etc.), and see if you feel better.

[SarcasticDave94]

I believe what Hydrangea posted is a valid and interesting point. My paraphrasing: garbage in garbage out AKA your machine reports an output of what occurred when you used it. The machine isn't capable of lying, as lying indicates the machine can choose truthful or false data output, which it can't.

It's likely the report data indicates you should have slept being well rested. But something else that's not addressed caused you to not gain that restful sleep. It could be machine settings need adjusted, it could be your sleep hygiene needs attention and adjustments, or there could be something else that's robbing you of that rest, be it another aspect of apnea or other medical symptoms.

[duece12345]

Your profile shows a minimum pressure of 4.2. Many adults feel 'starved for air' at anything less than 6.

As others have said downloading Oscar and posting charts is a good idea.

Yeah I will post some charts here in the future.  I have it set between 5-11 now to see if that makes a difference.

[duece12345]

Thank you everyone for the reply’s.  I’ll do some digging on my settings and see if any changes help.

[Dormeo]

It's good you are ready to experiment with your settings, but I think you need to have reasons for changing them up or down. There are so many people on this forum who could help you with that, if you were to post a Daily Chart from Oscar. Could you give that a try?