Hi everyone
I am wondering did anyone else have a sleep test reading of 80 AHI?
This was mine and reading everyone else I seem to be in the extremely high range and I was wondering what was the average for everyone else
I suppose my question is also because I wonder if this was a particularly bad night and whether I should ask for another test as my AHI On my cpap machine is now 0.4
Hi! This is Dr. Luisi. Statistically most OSA patients are in the mild to moderate range(about 80%). This would mean that their AHI is in the 6-30 range. Therefore about 20% are severe. This would mean that their AHI is in the over 30 range. Severes with AHIs in the 45, 50, 65 range are fairly common in my practice. An AHI of 80 is on the high side, but by no means record-breaking. I personally have heard of at least two patients with AHIs in the 130 range. An AHI of below 4 is considered to be "normal". That is to say "normal" people can have a few apneas an hour. Never-the-less, you really have to consider whether a patient is still symptomatic. If your AHI is down to 2 and you are still tired, you have to try to get it even lower. Some people have no AHI and are just snoring and feel tired. In these patients, you have to eliminate the snoring to make them feel better. Dr. Luisi
I work in a sleep lab, and your AHI of 80 is high, but certainly not record breaking by our standards. We regularly get people with AHIs over 100 ,and I have seen a couple over 200. There is a theoretical maximum based upon the rules for scoring (analysing) sleep studies, but it is not exact. You have to have decreased respiration for at least 10 seconds for it to count (along with either a decrease in oxygen saturation of at least 3% or an observable arousal in EEG). Then, you would require a second or two to take at least one breath for the event to be over before you start the next one. If we call it 2 seconds for a breath, that gives us a theoretical maximum AHI of 300. As Dr Luisi suggested, it's worth remembering that AHI is only part of the picture.
My diagnostic AHI was over 100. But the comforting thing to us as patients is that with OSA, unlike some other medical conditions, the "severity" of the condition in terms of AHI does not necessarily mean our condition is any harder to treat than that of someone with a lower AHI during his or her diagnostic study. Once we have a diagnosis, all that really matters is our using an effective treatment pressure consistently every time we sleep. Once we are doing that, we may actually be getting much better sleep than people who have no diagnosis of OSA. CPAP, in a sense, becomes our secret weapon that makes us more alert than the average person on the street or behind the wheel--IF we are consistent in using it all night every night, that is.