(04-07-2014, 06:09 PM)Marnid2014 Wrote: I sit there stock still, only breathing in and out, calm, no movement, watching TV, I look at the data after and hour and my leaks are over the top, and I have 4 apnea episodes and 1 central????????? Huh????
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Quote:and I know about the apneas, but why did it even show I had them, does the machine flag a swallow?
Unlike Santa Claus, our machines cannot know when we're sleeping and when we're awake.
And wake breathing is not as regular as sleep breathing. Even though we are not usually aware of it, wake breathing is, in fact, controlled by our voluntary nervous system. (Sleep breathing is controlled by the automatic (involuntary) nervous system that also controls our heart.) While awake, we do things like sigh every now and then; we do deep breathing for a while and then breath (much more) shallowly and/or much more slowly for a while; we momentarily hold our breath while concentrating on something (sometimes something as simple as turning over in bed), and yes, we swallow.
All this natural variation in WAKE breathing can look like SLEEP DISORDERED breathing to our machines, and hence it is not uncommon for a PAP machine to score some false events during the times you are awake and using the mask because the machine has no way to tell that you are awake when the events happen.
What kind of events seems to depend on the person. For many people, these fake events will more likely be scored as CAs or Hs, but when I've run the experiment of consciously holding my breath at the beginning or end of the night, the fake apnea is just as likely to be scored as an OA as a CA; it may have something to do with
how a particular individual holds their breath.
Quote:absolutely no leaks coming out of the nose and my mouth was shut for the whole time. The only movement was swallowing. Even thought they said there was no leak in my hose, I wonder if the mask itself has a leak, but I only feel the exaust from the hole where it's supposed to come from.
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Quote:The leaks were in the 40's for the entire time, that just can't be right.
Is this the 95% leak number or are you looking at the leak graph in Sleepy Head????
Several crazy ideas that are probably NOT the root cause of your high leaks even though you couldn't detect any leaking while you were awake for that hour watching TV, but are worth checking out:
1) The hose is not tightly attached to the machine??? (Which hose are you using, by the way?)
2) Is the small hose firmly and securely attached to the large hose???
3) A hose or tear in the main hose. You said "they thought there was no hose leak". What did "they" base that on? Here's how I test for hose leaks: I attach one hose coupling to the faucet in the bathroom and turn the water on. I then use my thumb to close the hose (almost) entirely at the other end. If there's a leak, I get sprayed with water, but I can find where the leak is. (Duct tape works well as a temporary fix for a hose leak.) With an S9, the hose is attached to the back of the machine and that puts unnecessary stress on the hose right at the coupling. I wound up with a tear right above the coupling on my first hose after about 3 weeks of PAPing with my S9 way back when.
4) A pinhole sized leak or tear in the P10's short hose. One of my concerns with this mask is just how flimsy that short hose seems to be. Is it possible there's a tear right at the coupling?? Or maybe right where it joins the mask?? In that case I could see how you might mistake the leak for the normal exhaust flow. But on the P10, you really shouldn't be able to feel the exhaust flow if your hand is more than an inch or two away from the diffuser vents.
5) Is the humidifier tank lid completely closed? Usually this results in a huge unnatural noise, still, it's worth double checking.
6) Are the humidifier and blower units firmly and correctly attached to each other? Again, if they aren't this typically results in a lot of noise, but still it's worth taking things apart and putting them back together.
7) Is there a pinhole sized leak in the pillows themselves that is so close to the exhaust vent for the mask that you're mistaking the leak for the exhaust flow? On a P10, you really shouldn't be able to feel the exhaust flow if your hand is more than an inch or two away from the mask.
8) Is it possible that you happen to have a defective machine that is not recording leaks accurately? To have this evaluated will require the DME. But if the machine is not correctly recording leaks, then it should be returned to Resmed under warranty.
