Not Sure How to Deal with this Flow Pattern

[Melman]

Every second or third night I have at least a one or two hour period that looks consistently like this.

[attachment=13879]

For the rest of the night the flow pattern shows no or little indication of flow limitation or snores.
Here is a shot of the whole night. The period in question is from 5:30-7:30. I can look at any two minute segment in that period and it's essentially the same
[attachment=13880]


I know the first thought may be positional, but I wear a soft cervical collar and use my buckwheat chaff pillow every night. I try to sleep on my side but know I roll onto my back frequently. But that occurs every night; not just on those in which I see this pattern. It’s not at the same time on the nights when it’s occurred. I have no idea what’s causing it.
I increased my min pressure several nights ago from 9 to 9.6 and it made no difference. Thoughts and suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks

[sheepless]

just a guess: IDK that I can recognize palatal collapse in a flow rate graph but it is a possible explanation. I have a similar thing that occurs sporadically. according to member yrnkrn, increasing pressure has no discernible effect.

[Sleeprider]

I don't see palatal collapse there. The wave form suggests a couple false starts to inspiration with pretty strong flow limitation during the main inspiration. I can't guess what is creating this, but on Aircurve 10 users, it seems to go away when we increase sensitivity for trigger, and lengthen Ti Min. You don't have those options. Your results are really good, but I wouldn't turn down an Aircurve for more pressure support if the opportunity arises. Another possibility is movement. This pattern is sometimes seen with RLS or maybe associated with REM.

As far as "dealing" with this flow pattern, the question is, do you find it disruptive to sleep? Are you aware of it when it occurs? If not, it is probably not something you can affect with your current machine.

[Melman]

Thanks Sleeprider,

I'm not aware of any sleep disruption when it happens. My wife says I move around a lot sometimes so that may be it. I don't feel as rested as I would like but that may be due to poor sleep hygiene rather than the flow pattern.   I don't hink I'm ready to spen $1,000-1,500 on an Aircurve 10. I always like new "toys" but that's why I have wat to many tools and too much fishing gear.

[Sleeprider]

The pattern looks like physical movement which is common. A bad dream or whatever. Movement causes a lot of effect on expiratory respiration which is passive, and that is what we see here. If I was a sleep scientist in real life, I would probably have good examples, but being a cynic...Well only real scientist create hypoptheses and test the theory. We know these guys don't generally work in sleep medicine.