flow limitations acceptable levels

[yankees123]

What are acceptable levels as far as statistics are concerned, 95% and 99.5% for flow limitations?

[gainerfull]

I wouldn't focus too much on flow limitations as it can be different for everyone and even night to night I'll see flow limit fluctuations.

If you're chasing flow limits, you're likely focused on the wrong target, in my experience. That being said, I feel best when my 99.5% flow limits are less than .10.

[paulag1955]

I wonder if you'd feel differently about chasing flow limits if yours were higher.

[paulag1955]

I'm sorry, that sounded rude and I didn't intend it to be.

My 99.5% flow limit is 0.25 on a very good day. What's not obvious to me, is the relative seriousness of upper end flow limits >0.30 and those <0.20. I guess what I'm asking is what does each 0.01 increment actually represent.

[yankees123]

Good question Paula, let’s wait what the experts say about flow limitations.

[paulag1955]

And the follow up question is how do I weigh flow limits against AHI/RDI? If I have to sacrifice one for the other, which way do I go? Higher AHI/lower flow limits? Or Lower AHI/higher flow limits?

[PeaceLoveAndPizza]

The wiki has good information on flow limitations here: https://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph...limitation

And more on targets here: https://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph...ng_Therapy

Not here to debate things, just to offer up what has been written already in the wiki by some pretty smart folks.

[Gideon]

ResMed uses a calculated 0-1 index of flow limitations as one of its parameters to increase pressure.
The FL stat has no medical standard. Our experience here indicates that a FL stat value of 0.10 typically should be corrected. At this level the flow rate chart shows significant breathing resistance that should be reduced. Flow Limits are as important as apneas and hypopneas for managing your sleep breathing.

Treatment
Typically OA is managed with exhale pressure,
then hypopneas and flow limitations, and RERAS and UARS, by managing the flow limitations which are the basis for much of these, are managed with a differential pressure over your exhale pressure. The difference between exhale and inhale pressure is called Pressure Support (PS), or EPR (Expiratory Pressure Relief).

[CPAPfriend]

hi yankees,

this is the burning question in the sleep-medicine world, and you'll find different answers depending who you ask. Flow limitation is just a blanket term for upper airway resistance that does not meet the criteria for any of the conventional 'events' we typically tally as sleep-disordered breathing, but they've yet to set a clinically-significant standard for what's considered normal and what is considered pathological.

What we do know is with certain people at certain levels of flow limitation, their EEG background activity is markedly different, indicating the possibility of disturbed sleep. They've quantitatively and qualitatively tried to measure this, and what they found is the these "CAP rates" are well-correlated with symptoms of daytime sleepiness.

What we also know is that flow limitation presents in the normal population; that is, in people without any objectively measurable sleep-disordered breathing nor subjective complaints, measured by the standard sleep questionnaires, and more recently researchers have suggested using 30% of the night spent in flow limitation as a threshold to help guide the diagnosis of sleep-disordered breathing patients. I did a video on this that you can see on my channel called, 'how much suffocation is normal?'

[Opus1]

Just to be sure I'm not misinterpreting,
Increasing EPR (from current setting of 1 to 2 or 3), will tend to round out these breath patterns ????


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