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+--- Thread: Expiratory Flow Limitation? (/Thread-Expiratory-Flow-Limitation--47409)
Expiratory Flow Limitation? - deebob - 11-27-2024
Can anyone tell me if this is expiratory flow limitation?
[attachment=72391]
My breaths looks like this for the majority of most nights. I don't seem to have as many inspiratory flattening except during the first hour of sleep most nights. And then it always looks like this, with the squiggly, flat part on what I think is the exhale?
I've always been suspicious of palatal prolapse, but I don't think I've ever had full blown prolapse in my Oscar data. But does this look like it's partial palatal prolapse?
I always have trouble keeping my mouth shut, and for a couple years I would just sleep with no mouth tape, and sometimes just a cervical collar or chin strap to try to keep my mouth shut, so I still had the option for air to leak out my mouth. But I would often wake up with a dry mouth, and probably experience more disturbances from the mouth leaking. So recently I've tried mouth taping again, and it's been okay but I still feel tired and crappy most days, and I can feel the tape sometimes loosens in the night and I get a dry mouth again. And sometimes my cheeks will puff up if I don't maintain good tongue posture.
So I feel like this all points to some kind of issue with my soft palate. I tried BIPAP in 2020 and it went terribly. I just woke up constantly like every 30-60 mins, with similar settings to the APAP. So I'm wondering if something about that also suggests the soft palate is causing problems that are just made worse by BIPAP, which I've heard can happen with palatal prolapse.
RE: Expiratory Flow Limitation? - deebob - 11-29-2024
Bump. Anyone?
RE: Expiratory Flow Limitation? - Nightynite - 11-29-2024
Look at this.
https://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php/Flow_limitation
RE: Expiratory Flow Limitation? - G. Szabo - 11-29-2024
I agree that you do not have a full blown PP, but something is going on during exhalation with your soft palate. It is closer to a snoring.
I do not believe that you need a nasal stent, but You might want to try positional therapy, which helped me.
Palatal prolapse mitigated with positional therapy.
RE: Expiratory Flow Limitation? - Dormeo - 11-29-2024
Those little squiggles around the zero line look like cardioballistic artifacts (aka cardioballistic or cardiogenic oscillations). What happens is that your heartbeat telegraphs itself to your airway and causes minute changes when you're between breaths. More here:
https://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php/Cardiogenic_Oscillations
This is pretty common -- I have it myself. It's nothing to worry about.