help me interpret these Hypopneas

[rdaystar]

would love to try to understand why these hyponenas are occurring. I see my breathing wax and wane. Pressure set to 17, been doing this for coming up on a year now.

[coutherino]

Hi. Just going to be blunt, you need to be on a higher pressure. CPAP aims to stabilize your airway, to prevent it from collapsing, which is what ultimately limits airflow. That collapse is exactly what you're seeing there with those hypopneas. Except they aren't just hypopneas, a few of those seem to be complete obstructive events, which your machine tagged correctly.

I see you're on APAP with a minimum pressure of 10. I can see no circumstance where that would be enough pressure for you when you're still having complete obstructions at 17. I also see you're using EPR on 3. That means you aren't exhaling against 17 cmH2O, but 14. This could very well be contributing to the obstruction, as your EPAP (the pressure you exhale against) is incredibly important for stabilizing your airway, and preventing obstructive apneas.

It's difficult to tell from this screenshot, but it looks like your apneas may be positional. Do you typically sleep on your side or back? If you switch between the two it could explain the section in which there appear to be no events being flagged. Sharing a screenshot of an entire night would be helpful in figuring this out.

Just based on what I can see here, my main recommendation would be to turn EPR off, (for now) switch the mode from APAP to CPAP, and raise your pressure from 17 to 19. If you're set on using APAP and EPR, you could try raising your min to (preferably) 17 and raising your max to 19, while keeping EPR on 3.