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I'm looking at the OSCAR data, and I'm not getting many apnea events, but I do see these little peaks and irregularities in flow rate throughout my sleep. Is this just tossing and turning? RERAs? REM sleep? I also noticed a point where my flow rate was very smooth then suddenly started having these irregularities. Is this when I actually entered REM? I'm wondering because I noticed the respiratory rate sort of cycles in the latter part of the night. Any other insights are appreciated.
Context:
I have mild sleep apnea (AHI 6.5). I'm a week into using a Resvent iBreeze 20A APAP machine and I'm still getting used to it. Right now my sleep feels worse than before and I'm getting headaches. I was initially on 4-20 with ramp, but I changed it to 4.5-20 no ramp so I didn't feel like I was suffocating. Keeping IPR at level 2 seems to be most comfortable. My pressure never seems to go above 6, which seems low, but anything above 6 does feel like a lot of pressure to me.
Those are arousals e.g. turning over, snorting, sighs, etc. Nothing unusual.
Consider setting your pressure to min 6, max 12, IPR 2 (or maybe min 7 IPR 3 if more comfortable). The bit of extra pressure should help with the flow limitations.
It may take a few days to get used to it, but I hope you’ll find it more comfortable in the long run.
Would you mind zooming in a bit further on these respiratory flow issues. I can probably interpret them, but I also see an error in our Resvent machine respiration rate. What version of Oscar is this? I'd like to help figure out what's going on for you and correct some errors in Oscar.
INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
Here's a couple of the flow issues zoomed in. I also attached a screenshot of what the data looks like for a marked apnea and hypopnea (there also seems to be an unmarked one in the middle). I'm using OSCAR 1.5.1. I heard Resvent and OSCAR don't mix well.
The spikes are large large breaths intakes followed by breath-holds followed by slow exhale, irregular shallow air movement, or what is flagged as apnea. This looks to be a change in position rather than any respiratory issue to be concerned with. It is common for people to take a large breath ahead of a major change in sleep position.
Your respiration rate is 12 bpm and is shown as a median of 1.0, 95% of 1.0 and max of 5.0, so something is wrong with that statistic. The I:E statistic is also incorrect and the pressure settings also appear incorrect. What your your current settings? I plan to take this to the Oscar team.
INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
I believe I was using 4.5-20 cmH2O pressure with IPR 2. I've just ignored the data in the left sidebar since it doesn't seem to be super accurate. I've also tried using iMatrix to see the data since it's made for Resvent, but OSCAR has been easier to use. The pressure data from iMatrix lines up best with "mask pressure" in OSCAR. iMatrix doesn't show resp. rate or I/E data to compare. The leak data and AHI graphs appear the same from what I can tell.
Machine: Resvent ibreeze Auto CPAP Mask Type: Full face mask Mask Make & Model: Philips Respironics DreamWear Full Face Mask Humidifier: unsure CPAP Pressure: [8.7 - 13] CPAP Software: Other Software
Hello, if you actually go on the forum again and search "Help interpreting Imatrix data", I actually made a thread on this exact topic like 1-2 weeks ago. No one responded but I am having the exact same issue as you. Everything looks perfect except for these weird peaks, which happen to me every 15 minutes or so after I fall asleep. I'm so confused because I still feel horrible and after 2 months of use I have not noticed any uptick in improvement of my condition. My diagnosis was 7.7 AHi not not high at all so idk what to do at this point.
So those little ticks are sudden deeper breaths that don't have to do with apneas. Everyone has some from just coughing or sniffing or reacting to something in a dream or what have you. But if you're cpap situation is uncomfortable that might be causing a heightened level of anxiety and therefore more little awakenings just from that. (Keep in mind, I'm talking out my ass here a bit, this is just what I feel like was going on in my experience.)
I felt like maybe I was waking up because of the constant pressure changes from ipr and apap mode. What helped me feel comfortable with the cpap was switching off ipr and first getting used to that. I set the min and max to be only 3 values apart. Then every day, I incremented the min and max pressure until I got the ahi to decrease even more. It was already low (around 2) but I got it to go even lower (around 1) and this made a difference in my sleep quality. Once I figured out the pressure range that was helpful, I narrowed the range by either increasing the min or decreasing the max a little at a time. Eventually I settled on min 8, max 9. This process took about a month to figure out. This stopped my headaches and made my sleep feel more solid.
You're also relatively new to cpap still so you could just be getting used to it still. It took about 3 weeks for me to not feel like my sleep was complete garbage and a bit longer to get good enough quality to feel like I needed less sleep than before the cpap. But I did eventually get there.
Another idea I had is maybe your humidity settings need to be changed. Maybe you're nose is getting dried out and making you cough while you sleep? Also make sure to change your filter and clean the cpap parts regularly so you don't get allergies/sick.
Other things that helped me sleep better/get used to it: keeping the cpap on the floor so the noise bothers me less, taking 1 mg melatonin, taking l-theanine (helps reduce my anxiety and makes me feel less irritated), trying different mouth tape that doesn't fall off so easily, weighted blanket
