Time of night for apnoea events?

[Sorbus]

Hi all,

First post here after reading the forum for a few weeks. I've been diagnosed with moderate central sleep apnoea and some mild obstructive apnoea for almost two years now, and have had issues with excessive sleepiness going back to my childhood. I may also have problems with DSPD which I will shortly have some checks to confirm. Therapy-wise, I've been on an APAP machine, but have just been moved over to a CPAP machine.

Whilst reading up on DSPD, I wondered if I would see any pattern in the timing of apnoea events in my SleepyHead data. Using the average over a year's worth of data I see a climb in the events from 1am, peaking at 6am. Do other sufferers out there also have a distinct pattern in event timing? Am I looking at something that's typical? Or just for central sleep apnoea?

Thanks,

Sorbus

[trish6hundred]

Hi Sorbus,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
I'm curious, why would you be switched from an APAP to a straight CPAP machine, when an APAP will do straight CPAP?
Hang in there for answers to your questions and best of luck to you with your CPAP therapy.

[Sorbus]

Hi Sorbus,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
I'm curious, why would you be switched from an APAP to a straight CPAP machine, when an APAP will do straight CPAP?
Hang in there for answers to your questions and best of luck to you with your CPAP therapy.

Hi Trish,

Thank you! My local sleep clinic provides the machines and changes them over as required. They started me off on APAP because of the mixed symptoms.

[robysue]

For OSA it is quite common for events to become more common later in the night. The reason why is that for many OSA sufferers, their OSA is (much) worse in REM than in non-REM sleep. And the REM cycles typically lengthen as the night goes on, hence the number of obstructive events tends to be worse later in the night.

But I really don't know if that pattern also holds for central sleep apnea.

[DeepBreathing]

Hi all,

First post here after reading the forum for a few weeks. I've been diagnosed with moderate central sleep apnoea and some mild obstructive apnoea for almost two years now, and have had issues with excessive sleepiness going back to my childhood. I may also have problems with DSPD which I will shortly have some checks to confirm. Therapy-wise, I've been on an APAP machine, but have just been moved over to a CPAP machine.

Whilst reading up on DSPD, I wondered if I would see any pattern in the timing of apnoea events in my SleepyHead data. Using the average over a year's worth of data I see a climb in the events from 1am, peaking at 6am. Do other sufferers out there also have a distinct pattern in event timing? Am I looking at something that's typical? Or just for central sleep apnoea?

Thanks,

Sorbus

G'day Sorbus. I also have mainly central apnea. When trying an APAP machine the apneas were somewhat better controlled and typically they started coming on around 4:00 am. I now have a VPAP and don't get apneas much at all.

Which raises a question - the conventional wisdom is that " ordinary" devices can't treat centrals and you need a bilevel auto-servo ventilator (ASV) to treat them. Which makes me wonder why you've been changed back to a CPAP rather than upgraded to an ASV.

[zonk]

I,m wondering too, why APAP/CPAP prescribed while sleep study diagnoses 'moderate central sleep apnea and some mild obstructive apnea'

[Sorbus]

Hi all,

Thanks for all of your messages. I'm changing sleep clinic from a regional hospital to a national research unit next month to get better diagnosis/treatment, so I can address those issues then. One thing that was flagged up at my last check-up was that my AHI had gone up from around 6 to 15 in the last 6 months on the APAP machine. I don't know if that would be a factor in the change. They've changed my pressure from 4.5 on the APAP to 9.5 on the CPAP.

With the suspected DSPD, my natural sleep pattern would be pretty anti-social. 3am to bed, waking at 10am, with a nap around 6-7pm. The central apnoea is probably caused by a separate neurological problem I have. The research unit are looking forward to me as an 'interesting case'!

Ta,

Sorbus

[trish6hundred]

Hi Sorbus,
It's great to hear that you are going to get a second opinion.
Good luck to you at your next sleep study.