Hi! Thought this would be as good a place for me to introduce myself as any since it's something I'm concerned with currently. My name is Bill and I'm 38 years old, fairly slender and healthy and never been diagnosed with anything major up until diagnosed with sleep apnea back in January of this year (2018). After feeling "weird" for the better part of about a year or so and having most of my issues stemming from rough nights of sleep that I've never encountered before, I began researching all of the symptoms I was dealing with, which isn't always a good thing, but helped me figure things out sooner rather than later. I really thought I was going crazy and was dealing with severe anxiety and depression a long with some other symptoms that seem to keep me going back to sleep apnea and that eventually led me to my diagnosis. My primary physician kept wanting me to take some meds for my anxiety or thinking my poor sleeping was because of my acid reflux, but I knew it was something more than that.
My sleep study in January showed I had mild osa, but boy it has seemed major to me. My ahi was 12.6 and 24 in rem and my oxygen levels dropped so low (56% according to my sleep dr, but she said she drops 20% off the number to give a more accurate look at what's going on) that they put me on a cpap rather quickly during the night and I didn't take to it very well. So, they wanted me to come back in the next night to get a better reading on what pressure would best help me. They determined that 13 was what did it for me, but set my dreamstation at min 8 and max 20 with ramp set at 5. I started to tell a difference right off the bat for the most part and although my ahi wasn't getting real low, it was consistently under 5 basically every night the first week. I went back for a check after about 2 months on the machine and she upped my min pressure to 10 to help lower my average ahi which was around 4 and for I've even went in a changed my pressure to see if it would help. It appears my "wheelhouse" is likely 12 since that is what my 90% pressure seems to average over the last month or so. As far as the clear airway apneas, they seem to be the ones lately that are highest and I've noticed on my dreamstation, it gauges periodic breathing and although the average is 1% over the 3 months I've been on it, I've noticed that it's been consistently more the last couple of weeks. Some nights it's still 0 or 1 %, but there's also been some nights of anywhere from 2-7%. It's only been above 4 % maybe 3-4 times over the entire time I've been treating, but was just bothersome to me lately to see that and the clear airway apneas creep up. I'm going to give some results from the last few nights of sleep from Sleepyhead (which by the way isn't always right on with my dreammapper app if someone could try and explain that to me?) and hopefully someone can give me some guidance. Sorry for the extremely long first post, but looking forward to getting more educated on my condition. Thanks!
Here is last night's (May 3) totals from Sleep Head for an example:
AHIApnea Hypopnea Index 3.07
Philips Respironics DreamStation
Auto CPAPModel 500X110 - J20807664DED6
PAP Mode: APAP (Variable)
Min 11.5 Max 20 (cmH2O)
Date Sleep Wake Hours
5/3/2018 23:42:33 08:16:33 08:27:39
Periodic Breathing 7.78%
Large Leak 0.00%
Clear Airway 2.13
Obstructive 0.24
Hypopnea 0.71
RERA 0.00
Flow Limitation 0.12
Vibratory Snore 0.00
Vibratory Snore (VS2) 1.42
Pressure Pulse 3.19
Breathing Not Detected 0.00%
Here is the night before (May 2):
AHIApnea Hypopnea Index 1.40
Philips Respironics DreamStation
Auto CPAPModel 500X110 - J20807664DED6
PAP Mode: APAP (Variable)
Min 11.5 Max 20 (cmH2O)
Date Sleep Wake Hours
5/2/2018 23:52:20 07:47:47 07:52:24
Periodic Breathing 0.80%
Large Leak 0.00%
Clear Airway 0.25
Obstructive 0.64
Hypopnea 0.51
RERA 0.00
Flow Limitation 0.25
Vibratory Snore 0.00
Vibratory Snore (VS2) 2.29
Pressure Pulse 1.14
Breathing Not Detected 0.00%
And the night before that:
AHIApnea Hypopnea Index 3.37
Philips Respironics DreamStation
Auto CPAPModel 500X110 - J20807664DED6
PAP Mode: APAP (Variable)
Min 11.5 Max 20 (cmH2O)
Date Sleep Wake Hours
5/2/2018 00:29:35 08:30:52 08:01:17
Periodic Breathing 2.40%
Large Leak 0.00%
Clear Airway 1.99
Obstructive 0.75
Hypopnea 0.62
RERA 0.12
Flow Limitation 0.00
Vibratory Snore 0.00
Vibratory Snore (VS2) 2.49
Pressure Pulse 3.62
Breathing Not Detected 0.00%
Event Breakdown
