New and Needing Help...

[ranvanman]

So far my results have been good with just the collar. However, I switched to a different collar. 

I was using the Caldera collar, and it did work for a few nights. My drops were significantly less. But then I found on two nights that in my sleep I was able to push down on the collar and tuck my chin because it was not very stiff in the front under my chin. My drops increased and I went down to 84% setting off my alarm twice.

So I switched to the Velpeau collar. It is stiffer and borderline uncomfortable, but after a night or two, I can sleep with it on and not have discomfort. My drops have gone way down. Last night was the best with zero drops over 4% and only five over 3% for the whole seven hour night! I did drop to 88% though. (The previous night was 11 total drops over 3% and a low of 87%. The night before that, my drops were at 8 with a low of 88%).  Before I used a collar, I had 35 to 45 drops over 3% in a night.  So far I have not been able to have a night where my oxygen did not drop below 90%.

My concern is that my average oxygen levels stay at about 93% almost every night. Last night's average was 92% despite having few drops.  

As for the Wellue rating, I have been getting 9.8 almost every night with a collar. Last night I got a score of a 9.9. Never knew it was possible.

Anyhow, just an update for now. My wife says that the sleep doctor will probably tell me to continue what I am doing and not prescribe any CPAP machine.

[TechieHippie]

That sounds like an improvement. Watch out for focusing on certain numbers though. When your average is 92, you may not have very many drops simply because they were using a different baseline / you were already low. If your average was 95, many of those readings would count as drops. Does that make sense? I'm not sure how to interpret "oxygen always stays low" versus "mostly normal but frequently dropping below normal".

You still aren't into textbook numbers, though. Unless you have a condition like COPD, an average of 92 or 93% does not seem ideal or fully treated to me. However, it may just be your normal and it's unclear whether further treatment is warranted, especially since you don't really have any symptoms of sleep disorder in your daytime. I just know that I would really struggle with that much time under 94%, it's got to be most of your night with that low of an average.

I don't know how Wellue works the algorithm for the calculations. Have you tried putting your oxygen data into Oscar? It might be worth installing Oscar and downloading the data even though it's kind of a pain. I'm curious what Oscar says about the baseline and drop index. Oscar is much easier to keep track of longer term trends than the OEM software.

It doesn't jump out as obvious sleep apnea, though. Do you live at altitude? You mentioned family heart issues and mouth breathing. I can't remember, are you using mouth tape or just the collar? I use Buteyko tape which I like because it comes in sheets and I cut just the size I want .. you can do the same with 3m tapes I think. I'd avoid the shaped ones. That might be worth an experiment.

I also think it would be worth monitoring your oxygen when you're doing something like working at a desk during the day, something where you'll forget about the ring and there won't be a lot of movement to cause issues with reading. If your daytime averages are similar to your nighttime averages, have large swings, or are at or under an average of 94%, then I would talk to your doctor about whether your overall oxygen is an issue or if that's just where you run... That would point away from sleep as the main issue, and might indicate value in a breathing trainer device, lung assessment, staying aware of air quality, etc. If your daytime averages are up in the high 90s, with just the occasional drop to 92 or 93 or lower, then I would consider that normal and keep looking at potential nighttime improvement.

My gut feel is that you aren't fully treated but you aren't in a danger zone in the short-term, there is no need to panic but it's not necessarily healthy or close to optimal. ( But you could say this about many aspects of health, like how much carbs I eat when I have a family history of diabetes.) However given your cardiac family history, I wouldn't just write it off. This is just one window into your health and it's not a whole picture yet. So if it were me, I think I would continue your current plan, trying mouth tape if you can, adjusting as needed for a month or two. See if your drops come back (suggesting you are just keeping yourself out of the sleep stages that made it drop) or your average stays low once you aren't paying so much attention to your sleep. Or, maybe once you relax into the treatment you have, it might get better when you aren't paying attention to it. A month or two of data will give you more indication of your own patterns. Another option would be to rent or borrow a CPAP for a month or two and see what it does to your oxygen numbers. You might just have a whole lot of flow limitations that keeps you low all the time.

For curiosity's sake, could you post reports pre and post collar from your VI health or 02 insight software? I'd like to see that 92 average night. In VI health Go into the detail for the night, and then hit the share button. The share may give you the option to share as a photo or PDF and you want PDF. You might have to email it to yourself, it's less than intuitive. If you aren't using the mobile software and using the O2 insight desktop software, just screenshot the report.

[SnoozeBest]

I do tend to sway between being a hypochondriac to an optimist.

OMG this is me too!  I'm new and trying to learn as much as I can.