[Health] Trying to understand my therapy better.

[robysue]

Yes, Robysue's the man around here....

Woman around here!

At any rate:

I've been on the road traveling. And just now got back to having a reliable internet connection.

I'm studying those graphs now and will write more shortly.

[robysue]

Easy question first:

I had a very good night. 1.48 ahi

Hypopnea 1.21
Obstructive Apnea 0.00
Clear Airway Apnea 0.27
Vibratory Snore 0.54


I didt have OA. I think OA can be scored as HI when they are caught? This may explain why i have that many HI.

The difference between scoring something as a hypopnea (H) versus an obstructive OA (OA) is a matter of measuring just how much the airflow has decreased. Most machines will score an OA if the airflow decreases by 90% or more from baseline for at least 10 seconds. They'll score an H if the airflow decreases by 50% or more from baseline for at least 10 seconds. When the airflow decreases by approximately 90%, it can go either way, based on just how the machine is computing the baseline airflow.

And during a titration study what typically happens as the tech increases the pressure is this:

The original H's turn into Flow Limitations and then disappear (if the pressure is increased far enough)

The original OAs turn into Hs and then turn into FL and then disappear as the pressure continues to be increased.

So sleeping on your side may very well have helped the machine do it's job of preventing the total airway collapses by making it harder for the airway to collapse in the first place

Today i feel like a champ. I wonder what made the OA dissapear. I was able to sleep on the rigth side all nigth. i breath better by the left nostril so that helps.

Could be sleeping on the side. Or it could simply be that the brain has finally started sorting out all the PAP stuff and genuinely relaxed into real sleep and wasn't "on guard" all night.

I still dont understand why sometimes my OA are fixed and sometimes not.

Short answer: We don't sleep the same way every single night. Seriously---that's all it is.

Long answer: Even NORMAL people who have no OSA problem have good nights, bad nights, and indifferent nights. When a normal person is having trouble breathing because of a head cold or allergies, they may have more obstructive apneas and hypopneas than they normally do. (Even NORMAL people can have a few OAs and Hs during the whole course of the night; it's just that they don't have dozens to hundreds of them each night)

And for a person who does have OSA, once the sleep patterns start to normalize with the aid of CPAP, there's still that tendency for some nights to be better or worse than others. So it's important to NOT get all tangled up in worrying when you see an AHI that's higher than your normal treated AHI every once in a while. The importance of the AHI data likes more in trending than in individual numbers: In other words, if your AHI normally runs between 1.5 and 3.0, but on RANDOM night it jumps up to 7.0 and then it's back down to where it usually is, that probably means absolutely nothing in terms of the efficacy of your therapy. But a long term trend upwards from the 1.5-3.0 range towards the 6.0-7.0 range that occurs over 2-3 weeks definitely indicates something's not working right anymore.

[Ghandi]

Wow robysue you are indeed "ze woman" around here



I hope i can continue learn a lot about the subject and be able to help others someday.

In the meantime i'll wait untill november and see what the doctors has to say about my long OA and see if he will increase my pressure. i have the feeling he put my machine in titration mode again.

I dont have fl in sleepyhead. I think it's because Pr doest have it when in fixed pressure mode? is it?

[retired_guy]

fl, as in "flow limit?"

In Sleepyhead, click "File," "Preferences," "Graphs." Then click on "Flow Limit" to turn it on.

[Ghandi]

Humm it's checked but it does't show up. I wonder if it's the machine or what's wrong.