Newly diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea

[alva360]

Yes Please.

Hi Gideon,

Here's the report from last night when I had the cervical collar (Futuro from 3AM). I still see two big clusters of OA at the beginning of my sleep, then it seems to normalize after 2 am. The way I had the collar on, I can't imagine I was tucking my chin toward my chest.

Also, I wanted to point that in my sleep study no apnea was recorded at a time when my oxygen saturation was 80 or below. (see second attachment). Is that a flaw in the study?

[staceyburke]

On the O2 saturation - I do mine quite often and I have these.  My pulmonologist said not to worry with a sharp drop and then coming back quickly - it was most likely that the probe lost contact with the finger for a few seconds not that the O2 leaves dropped significantly.

[Gideon]

Where do you see "Flow Limitation" or short (<10 seconds) apneas or hypopneas on your sleep study? I see a hint of them in arousals at the bottom. These would show up in the detailed flow rate chart that is never provided, at least not in the detail necessary to discern these.

Post 3-minute zoomed views of your chart, not longer, and set the Y-axis on your Flow Rate to +/-70 so more detail will show. Let's see what is going on in those obstructive clusters.

[alva360]

Here are the 3 minute zoomed views of some OAs.

[attachment=36298]

[attachment=36297]

[Gideon]

That shows severely flow-limited breathing then a large recovery breath, as we would expect from kinking of your airway.

We need to get the kinks out. This collar is not working.

[alva360]

That shows severely flow-limited breathing then a large recovery breath, as we would expect from kinking of your airway.  

We need to get the kinks out.  This collar is not working.

Hello! I am here with another update. So, I got a new soft collar and seems to be working better (although now I have muscle spams around the neck LOL), anyway let's try to fix one thing at a time...

I finally was able to sleep for about 7:30 hours with mask and collar on (not continuous as I keep waking up during the night). I was happy and wanted to see the sleep report in OSCAR, but when I saw it wasn't a good one. AHI of 13.30... and even though I slept most of the time, I feel like tired and super slow/heavy. Since I was thinking I was about to eliminate the OA I thought I was getting an AHI of 2-5 ?.

The OA clusters are almost gone, I assume this is thanks to the soft cervical collar, however, the CA went up significantly, and sometimes for 23 seconds or more. I am not sure how to interpret this data.

Also, noted more flow limit in the charts, but not associated to any OA or CA.

Here is the entire 8 hour report:
[attachment=36338]
Here's a 3 min zoom in one of the CA clusters (this scares me, is this accurate or can the machine br misinterpreting data?:
[attachment=36339]
Thank you all for the help!

[Gideon]

I think you were mostly awake in that segment based on your heavier breathing, though it does not show erratic breathing that is definitely awake breathing thith the OA events being moderate breath holding. The FOT is considered accurate at detecting obstruction for the classification of the apnea, what is missing is the ability of any CPAP to determine your wake status

[alva360]

Hello all

I am back after quitting for a few days. Trying a new collar, new pillow, mask on, somehow I messed up my neck/back and been with spasms for days ?. Last night I tried again and I was able to do almost 5 hours without waking up during he night (finally). I dont see many positional apnea (maybe none) due to the soft collar (i have a screenshot below). I do still see lots of central apnea ?.

What do you all think? 10 AHI is the lowers I ever had.

[RandallRLeach]

I can understand your situation because I experienced this. Significant leaks can irritate you by blowing in your eyes, making noises, or causing arousals, or in the case of mouth leaks - by increasing airflow through your upper airway and drying out your nose and mouth, resulting in a range of difficulties. The muscles that move your jaw relax when you sleep, causing your face to shift shape. Using a boil and bite [DME Link Removed] [Search Supplier #35]  custom fit mouthpiece with a hole for easy breathing is one method to avoid this problem. This is how I overcame my problem. Hope you also get rid of this.

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