Top Topics
Thank you very much for your reply. You explained the concept of the EEG arousals really well. That finally makes sense to me. Now I understand why my doctor's office still thought it was important to go forward. Thanks for getting me off the fence about this. I'll keep going forward on the plan and get more involved and informed.
I'm new to the forum so I hope I do this correctly. About 6 months ago I got checked for sleep apnea and, due to a health issue at that time, I had to sleep on my back. The home sleep test came back that I had sleep apnea and the doctor ordered CPAP which I started to use. After that I had a surgery and after the surgery (when in the hospital) since they were monitoring my oxygen levels we realized that the CPAP was not effective as my levels would drop and the alarm would go off. In the hospital they temporarily gave me an Auto SV Bipap which worked great. However, I then went back to the sleep doctor who ordered another sleep test and then gave me a regular BIPAP which it appears may have caused some central apneas. I didn't feel good on the BIPAP and now am scheduled for another sleep study. Since I am now able to sleep on my side I have been doing so (without a CPAP or BIPAP) and bought my own recording pulse oximeter to see what my oxygen levels were now during the night. This was a different story. My oxygen levels remain about at 92% to 95% while sleeping and there are maybe a couple dips to 90 or 88 but these last only 10 seconds or so. This is a lot better than the oxygen levels that I had while on the BIPAP. I told this to Physicians Assistant during my last appointment but she insisted that sleep apnea and oxygen levels were two different things. This doesn't make sense to me. If the oxygen levels are good then why would I need to have a machine help me breathe? Any thoughts from anyone here would be appreciated. I am considering going to another doctor for a second opinion but would appreciated any thoughts here. Thanks!
