I'm New To This - Here is A Little Info on my sleep study results

[SarcasticDave94]

I've not done a comparison of naps vs overnight sleep sessions on myself. I would suggest using the machine every time you do sleep, including naps. I found it helps enforce the habit of using the machine.

[CHanlon]

Hello All:

So far, so good.  Two nights and myair score has been 100 points.  First night 1.2 events per hour.  Second night 2.2 events per hour.   The second night, I used a mouth guard (boil and bite), and it kept my mouth closed most of the night.  I do not remember waking as a result of a rush of air coming out of my mouth.  i did wake up a time or two last night, but i can't say there was a reason, and i went right back to sleep.  

Both nights, I woke up calmer.  My mask fit and throat were much better the second night after I turned up the humidity level.

However, I just took a 1.6 hour nap today though using the CPAP, and the CPAP machine says I had 8.4 events per hour.  I did not have my mouth guard in, so I assume that's what created the events?

Does anyone have more apneas with napping than overnight?  Should I stop taking naps?

I don't nap... honestly, I don't need to anymore.  When I started CPAP 8 years ago, I took naps in the middle of conversations.  I took to it very well, slept 9 hours the first night and woke up with things like a memory.  And refreshed.  Haven't looked back.

You seem to be doing quite well, in spite of the absence of competent medical intervention.

With practice, waking with the air rushing out of your mouth will stop.  There's a bit of a trick to it (without a mouth guard) - you have to just sort of get into the habit of wedging your tongue against your pallet.  That'll help the dry mouth a bit, too.

[kiwii]

....Does anyone have more apneas with napping than overnight?  Should I stop taking naps?

Let's say that someone has all of their apneas during a one hour time period. If you calculate that as an average across the total time spent sleeping, it will give you a lower AHI for a full night of sleep vs. the one hour in which they occurred.

My AHI is almost always higher when I've slept 5 hours vs. when I sleep 8 hours (untreated, mine was 70 or 70-something).

[ramled99]

I have sleepyhead data imported to my computer.  Does any one know how to post it on here, without revealing my name and address and stuff?  I am curious to get folks' take on my numbers, overall and daily.

[SarcasticDave94]

You can view the SleepyHead wiki article for suggestions HERE.

When creating a user profile, use generic info that you don't mind being viewed. Also when you're about to take the screenshot, use F11 to go full screen then hit F12 to capture the screenshot. It will save that to whatever your default saved file is, or a custom one you may have targeted for this purpose. Then after the capture F12, you can hit F11 again to back out of full screen.

[Ron AKA]

I have sleepyhead data imported to my computer.  Does any one know how to post it on here, without revealing my name and address and stuff?  I am curious to get folks' take on my numbers, overall and daily.

When you do a screen shot of SleepyHead it will only include the User Name that you put into SleepyHead - nothing else. It is best to use a User Name that will not be too revealing. Alternately you could use some image editing software to black out that part of the image. If your User Name in SleepyHead is too revealing and you only have a limited amount of data that is still all in your CPAP, you could delete that profile and create a new one. Select that one and transfer your CPAP data to it. In the long run that will be more convenient.

[ramled99]

OK. I attached screenshots of my data from last night 4/14/18.  Its weird.  This was the best night of sleep I've had.  I know my CPAP has been very effective.  My AHIs have always been good since I started.  Last night, I never recall moving or adjusting my nose pillow mask, and I never recall waking up with my mouth open.  I woke up fully energized around 7am.  I took my mask off to get my Airsense sleep report for the night, which shows up instantly on the screen once you remove your mask.  It reported my usual 7 hours of total sleep time (a little over actually), and an AHI of 2.1.  Good data. I smiled.  I then put the nose pillow mask back on, took my mouth guard off, and went online, checked emails, facebook, and watched videos for another hour, while using my CPAP.  I guess I just wanted to up my total sleep time to 8 hours on the CPAP. But I was entirely awake with no intention of going back to sleep aftere I woke up this morning.  Just web surfing.  When I took my mask off an hour later or so, the sleep report on my airsense had my AHI at 7.5 events per hour for the entire night!  I had never had an AHI over 3 since I started using the CPAP 2 weeks ago.

I am still learning how to read my sleepyhead reports.  Any insights would be appreciated.  I am particularly interested in finding out if my snoring is ok.  I am going to assume my data spiked up because of my CPAP use between 7am-8am, when I was using the CPAP, while awake? I am sure I was breathing through my mouth the whole time I was awake from 7-8am.   

Any other concerns or feedback with this Sleepyhead report, good or bad?  My apologies if there is an easier way to read this data.  I just took screenshots that fully captured the entire report for last night.  Some of the data may overlap from screenshot to screenshot.

[Ron AKA]

Some tips to improve your screen shots.

1. Go to File, Preferences, Appearance, and uncheck the box that says show event breakdown pie chart. It will allow more data to display on the left.
2. Maximize your SleepyHead window before doing the F12, if you are not already
3. Order and show all these graphs on the screen:

Pressure
Mask Pressure
Flow Limit
Snore
Flow Rate
Leak Rate

If you can't get them all on, then bump mask pressure down, and flow rate up.

[Ron AKA]

Those graphs are more helpful. I have observed the same. I suspect the ResMed false flags events when we are awake, and it goes crazy and drives the pressure up. This should record as a separate session down in the left bottom corner of the screen. You can choose to display or not display individual sessions in a day by clicking on the switch beside each one. By default it is black green, and when you click it to black red, that session is not displayed or included in your daily data numbers. If this was recorded as a separate session I would suggest disabling it so you can see how you did for the rest of the night, which looks pretty good. I suspect the only snore number was also a false report during that wake period. 

As for settings I would suggest the following:

Ramp: Auto
Ramp Start: 6 cm
Minimum Pressure: 8.2 cm
Maximum Pressure: leave at 16 for now, but it probably can be lowered to around 13 if your results are similar to last night on an ongoing basis.