New Dreamwear = high AHI when AWAKE!

[holden4th]

I'm glad I read this thread. I have a Dreamwear mask but a different machine (F&P Icon+) set at 10-18. I was going to start my own thread about the anomalies I was seeing but I now don't have to.

Last night I stopped the machine and took the mask off because I was struggling to breathe through my nose. I used a nasal spray to clear things up and while I was waiting for this to happen I fell asleep without the mask. I woke up about three hours later and put the mask back on and waited to go back to sleep. You can clearly see from the graphs I have posted when this happened. I restarted everything and it took about 30 minutes to go back to sleep (about 1:30 am) You'll notice that I had about 10 OAs right from putting the mask back on even though I was awake! The data is wrong and this has also occurred on a couple of other nights. I know I was wide awake when the supposed OAs occurred.

So what is the machine registering that it thinks are OAs and hypopneas? Like the original poster, the pressure settings rise significantly after I go back to sleep. Something's not right here and I have a suspicion that I need to change settings. I turned Sensawake off, maybe I should turn it back on.

Has anyone else noticed animalies like this and are they related to the Dreamwear mask or more universal in nature.

I've included two graphs from Sleepyhead to show you what I mean. You'll see where I woke up (both nights) and what happened when I put the mask back on. Love to know what's going on.

Last Night Feb 21

http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h419...7hgl5z.png

Night before Feb 20

http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h419...k7li44.png

I wonder what my AHI would really be if this is false data.

[Recipefordisaster]

This is so weird! In the end, I had to go to fixed pressure to avoid this issue, even after swapping my machine out since RTs saw the problem in person and agreed it was abnormal. Once I was on fixed pressure, the false detection stopped and my AHI was back to my usual! Unfortunately, I couldn't keep using Dreamwear because when it was not adjusted exactly perfectly I could not breathe through it easily... One night I spent 2 hours getting it just right. Then it would move, unless it was tight enough to give me pain. I can't keep that up!

[Sleeprider]

Holden4th, you have abundant OA and hypopnea which indicate a need for higher minimum pressure. I'd move it up to 12.0 and see if that helps. Your events are distributed throughout the night, so it appears you need the higher pressure consistently. Are you using EPR?

[holden4th]

Holden4th, you have abundant OA and hypopnea which indicate a need for higher minimum pressure. I'd move it up to 12.0 and see if that helps. Your events are distributed throughout the night, so it appears you need the higher pressure consistently. Are you using EPR?

I don't have EPR as its a Fisher & Paykel ICON. It does have Sensawake which I've turned off. I'll try the higher pressure and turn Sensawake back on again.

Maybe I need to change my machine. It's a rental and the hire company does have the Resmed A10 auto.

This doesn't explain how it records OAs when I know I was wide awake.

[Sleeprider]

First, OA when you're awake don't count. Of course there is no way for me or others on the forum to know what periods that may be. I wouldn't try to talk you out of the Resmed Airsense 10 Autoset as it is very highly regarded in comparison. The reason for my question regarding pressure relief is that it can undermine the minimum pressure. A person at 10 cm minimum, could have a pressure as low as 7 cm during exhale. If we disregard the period right after the break in therapy as being awake, the remaining events are hypopnea with some flow limitation. Most of those events evolved out of the minimum pressure, and the machine just didn't catch up in a timely fashion. From 2:30, it takes 30 minutes to go from 10 to 14-15 cm pressure in the presence of H and FL. The resmed machine moves quite a bit faster.

[holden4th]

First, OA when you're awake don't count. Of course there is no way for me or others on the forum to know what periods that may be. I wouldn't try to talk you out of the Resmed Airsense 10 Autoset as it is very highly regarded in comparison. The reason for my question regarding pressure relief is that it can undermine the minimum pressure. A person at 10 cm minimum, could have a pressure as low as 7 cm during exhale. If we disregard the period right after the break in therapy as being awake, the remaining events are hypopnea with some flow limitation. Most of those events evolved out of the minimum pressure, and the machine just didn't catch up in a timely fashion. From 2:30, it takes 30 minutes to go from 10 to 14-15 cm pressure in the presence of H and FL. The resmed machine moves quite a bit faster.

Now that explains quite a lot. I'll adjust the minimum up to 12 tonight and see what happens. Thank you for your input. It's very helpful to know why things happen as I try to come to terms with all that sleep apnoea entails.