Sleepyhead question

I am sure this topic has been raised before but I would like to raise it again. I've heard of Sleepyhead and have been encouraged to use it but I don't know where to start. Anyone have success stories? Don't like it? I'm afraid of being too dumb to understand it. How does it work and what do you need to have? Help!

Let me give you a brief introduction. The software is free and you can download it here. And here is another link to a basic manual on how to use it. It was developed by an Australian who wanted to give users of CPAP machines access to the detailed data that these machines store on a SD card. To use the software you need a PC or Mac and a SD card reader. If you don't have a SD card reader, you can get a basic one that plugs into a USB port for as little as $5 at a place like Walmart.

The software is very useful in viewing what is really going on during the night. Without it, all we can see is very basic summary data, that is mainly designed to monitor compliance. Here is an example of the main daily detail screen from my machine for last night.

On it I can see my mask was leaking a bit, but not often over the suggested maximum of 25 L/min. I can see I took a fairly long time to go to sleep, but made it through the night without getting up. My AHI was lower than I normally get. I am currently testing a lower fixed pressure of 10.6 cm. This compares to when I was using as much as 15 cm in auto control. The majority of my events are still central (clear airway) while obstructive is not that bad.

And you can monitory your progress over time with the Overview tab. Here is my last 6 months. The solid red pressure bars are when I was in fixed pressure CPAP mode. My latest change to 10.6 cm is not doing so well, but I will probably give it another day or two before I give up on it.

That gives you an idea of what it can do. Assuming you have had a SD card in your machine, all this data is likely all there already. SleepyHead can let you look at it all. And for what you don't understand it is pretty easy to post a screenshot here for comments. What I have shown you is just scratching the surface. The resolution of the data is amazing and you can zoom in on by just clicking on areas of interest to see what happens on a breath by breath basis. That black kind of mess for Flow, and blue mess for Mask Pressure expands out so you can see each breath you took during the night.

Hope that helps. I think it is simply amazing software. I couldn't have gotten to where I am for AHI without it.

I should have posted a "before" picture as well as a current one. Here is what my results looked like at about my 3rd week into this CPAP thing. This one is in auto mode with EPR on, and pressures running up to 15 cm. At least on this one leaks were good!

Thank you!