Eye opener
My normal AHI under cpap is well under 1.0. I have found that to almost rid myself of apnea events, I can't sleep on my back. This I miss.
Last night, my grandson was in the emergency room because of a ski accident and I was experiencing much pain in my leg due to a herniated disc.
It was uncomfortable sleeping on my side so for a while I decided to lay on my back. When I woke up this morning and looked at my results I was shocked. In a 46 minute span I had an AHI of 27.
This has been the only time that is was this high. I was originally diagnosed with mild apnea. Can stress and pain cause this?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks, Brad
[attachment=1107]
RE: Eye opener
Every night is different. And, certainly life's events have an effect on sleep.
That's why an auto machine makes sense for most people.
Is your pressure 9 or 10? Looks like 9 in you Sleepyhead report; but, 10 in your profile.
RE: Eye opener
Pressure is 10 but for some reason it records 9.
RE: Eye opener
I see your running straight cpap mode on one of the best auto machines made. Or its broken because the pressure didnt rise in response.
Suggestion would be to switch to Apap mode with min of 10 and max of 15. If you wind up on your back etc and have something like that happen again the machine can raise pressure to deal with it. When its over itll drop back down.
If it takes less than 15 to clear a nasty on the back cluster or just a bad night, then you can always drop that max pressure to what is required to clear the events as you figure that out over time.
RE: Eye opener
I run at a pressure of 10 with Aflex and my results have been very good. At 12 I begin to have leaks and it gets worse as it gets higher which causes interrupted sleep. I suppose I could run on Apap and try a higher pressure. It would be nice to sleep on my back. Maybe that will help.
RE: Eye opener
Remember to refit your mask for the higher pressure, if you are going to use a range that may allow higher pressure than what you are using now.
Best Regards,
PaytonA
RE: Eye opener
Payton and I are able to get a decent seal with a FFM -- and look at our max pressures.
20 and 19 respectively. Most nights I hit max for a period.
Leaks really bug me -- but, I have mastered the ancient, secret art of the FFM.
RE: Eye opener
Don't worry too much about a short period of time once in a while, unless it's really bad. We don't pay much attention to "hourly" AHI numbers, just the nightly average.
We also don't pay much attention to a single night unless it's really bad.
Even though you had a lot of apneas, the individual apneas weren't that long and you got a good period of breathing between apneas. There's more to apnea than a simple event count.
However, do keep looking at your data, especially if you occasionally have a bad night.
Unless you need to sleep on your back more often, or this happens again, don't worry about this. If you DO need to or want to start sleeping on your back again, you might experiment with different pressure settings and back sleeping. It's possible you'd be able to sleep on your back without much apnea at the cost of a higher pressure.
How long did you sleep that night? Were you sleeping on your back the whole night and only had one bad hour, or did you have problems the whole time you were on your back?
Lots of things affect your apnea on individual nights. If I had to guess, I'd suspect back sleeping, but it could be other reasons.
Did you take any painkillers that night?
Get the free OSCAR CPAP software
here.
Useful links.
Click
here for information on the main alternative to CPAP.
If it's midnight and a DME tells you it's dark outside, go and check it yourself.
