Call for help: UARS? Apnea? CPAP?

Hi everyone,

I have a long history of strong daytime fatigue, nothing helped so far - I have been to countless doctors, for sleep studies, blood tests, thyroid tests, brain mrt and so on.. This forum is my last hope now!

I was prescribed a CPAP machine (ResMed AirSense 11 elite) by my sleep doctor. He said it might help, but didn't specify a diagnosis or explained how I can adjust the CPAP to make alignments.

I have started the CPAP therapy last week. So far, I haven't noticed any difference.

If someone would do me a big big big favor - Please have a look at my stats that I attached. The first one is from an in-lab sleep study. The second one from an at-home sleep study. I have a low AHI score of 4 and a little bit higher RDI score of 14. Unfortunately, the document is in German. Most parts (AHI, RDI, REM etc.) should be understandable however. When I wake up in the morning I have strong headache, never feel recharged, and not even 10 hours of sleep help.

My questions are:

• Does CPAP make any sense?
• What are the settings I should try?
• Are there any other thoughts you might have?

My dearest thanks to whoever is willing to help me here! I count on your expertise.

Many many many thanks! Best regards!

Screenshots:

I don't understand much of the German, but it would seem you have an AHI of 4.6 which is slightly less than the diagnosis standard of mild apnea (5-15 AHI). I also think I saw a minimum? saturated oxygen of 90%? That is a bit low but not worry some low. It does confirm there are some apnea events. I also think it says 78% of the events were obstructive, and 11% were central. Obstructive events where the airway closes can be corrected with air pressure. Central events are when you simply stop breathing with the airway open, and is not corrected with more pressure. I am not a medical professional, but I would suggest the sleep report indicates marginal apnea, and a cpap may or may not improve the situation. There is a certain amount of aggravation and sleep disruption from using a CPAP. In marginal cases this factor may outweigh the benefit from it.

What results are you getting for AHI and apnea types from the AirSense Elite? This machine should have a SD card that stores detailed data. You can download a freeware program called OSCAR to view this detailed data. It will tell you a lot more about what is happening during sleep and whether or not the machine is helping or not, or if there are some adjustments that could be made. The Elite machine is a fixed pressure device and does not adjust automatically, but the fixed pressure can be changed. OSCAR needs a PC or Mac and a SD card reader. If you need assistance with it, post back here.