I Need Chart Reading 101

[B1Sailor]

Trying to understand Insp. Time and Exp. Time in relation to the events and other graphs. Can holding my breath on inhale or exhale be guessed or is that not possible because the charts are only flow based?

So, with Inspiration Time increasing and Expiration Time dropping to almost zero, does that mean I am holding my breath inflated or deflated? Or just can’t tell and doesn’t matter as just holding breath somewhere along the curve?

Since Tidal Volume and Minute Ventilation both dropped at the same time, no air is moving. Is it tiny little breaths too fast to move air as the Flow Rate seems to show. Is it some sort of micro muscle spasms of the diaphragm?

On another tangent, is the first OA of this short time period just diagnosed because of the dropping Volume? In other words, why is the algorithm diagnosing the 2nd and 3rd as Central Apnea and the 1st as Obstructive Apnea?

                     

[Jeff8356]

Are you referring to the little osscilations between when you started holding your breath until it flagged an OA (from about 00:21:22 until 00:21:35)?
Those look like the FOT ResMed uses to determine if your airway is blocked or open.

[B1Sailor]

I was trying to understand Insp Time and ExpTime and the relationship to the other measurements. I thought that would show me what a Chest Strap would show by showing attempts to inhale and exhale. So when the Flow Rate goes into those little micro wave, what is occurring.

I was trying to understand a little more than just ineffective breathing. And if it is possible to read more from the patterns.

The 2nd part was the OA versus CAs when the Flow Rate patterns look the same to me.
I am think that the big increase in Inspiration Time at 00:41:30 shows I was taking a big inhale breath. And no air movement so it was flagged as OA.
The next two, the Expiration time goes way down with same micro waves in the Flow Rate. So flagged as CA because I just stopped and not sure if that means I stopped with lungs inflated or deflated. I am guessing deflated because holding your breath at the top takes considerable effort I would not think was occurring during deep sleep.

[fishfinderG]

I don’t think you can use Insp/Exp time graph to determine the type of event.

My understanding is that the pressure pulses from your machine are how the machine decides if your airway is blocked (OA) or open (CA).

If you want to know if you are holding your breath look at the flow chart and see if you exhaled or inhaled before the waveform goes flat and the machine starts pulsing to check your airway status.