Hypopnea questions and desats

[MyronH]

I have been doing good on my BI-LEVEL. <1 AHI for the last month. I sleep on my side now with a cervical collar. But last night, I woke up to my Contec SpO2 alarm going off, and my heart racing 100bpm. It said my SpO2 dropped to 86%. It appears from the sleepyhead chart, I only had a 10sec or so Hypopnea. Why would it desat so much?

I assume it may have desat more if i didnt have my Contec SoO2 watch on last night. Usually I only wear it a few times a month now to check levels. How dangerous is one or two Hypopneas a night?

[ajack]

The irregular breathing may have been longer than 10, but it doesn't matter either way. You had a desaturation and awakening. If it wasn't for the alarm, you may have just stirred in your sleep. This is what a Hypopnea is. You could raise you epap to 5, but you will still get the odd OA/H. Did you self buy the bpap? Your chart looks good and I would wonder what was the reason for bpap

[srlevine1]

I had much the same scenario at one time and upon further investigation, the alarm was triggered by my movement and I caused my own hypop by holding my breath when I looked at the device. I would only worry about desats if they are persistent and appear to be a trend. The problem with pulse-ox units is they may generate artifacts with movement.

[MyronH]

The bilevel was issued by doctor since CPAP /APAP didn't work for me. I use a dental appliance, cervical collar and chin strap. Plus a neck pillow to keep my head positioned. Quite a lot but all of it helps for me to get to very low AHI. Without all of it I had major issues with repeated breathing events causing my heart to go into AFIB and abnormal rhythms.

I did have another finger tip SpO2 nearby and used it on the other hand, and it gave the same reading in the 80's. So I'm pretty sure my O2 dropped since my heart was racing at a 100bpm.