Same worries again

[Brian2]

Hi again
I am sorry to bother you all again with almost the same question as last time, but I am still concerned that the results I am seeing each morning are not as good as they should be. It is confusing to say the least.

I am particularly concerned about the leak rate which was averaging 3.8 for the last month, but last night was 5.4. It seems as though the trend is to be higher than when I first used the mask.



The mask is still giving a 5 star and excellent report every morning which I have had consistently every morning for 6 weeks with only one exception.



My AI/HI/AHI is higher as well they averaged for the last month: AHI 6 (last night 7.5), AI 0.4 (last night 1.3), HI 5.5 (last night 6.2). I know that I should not look at individual nights but the trend does seem to be getting worse results.



The sleep centre set my pressure at 4 and 20.
Any advice/comments are welcome.


Thanks

[acebass]

what is the basis for you thinking your results are poor, do you have a set of results to set a trend by?

I do not have any kind of readouts on my machine and that's the way I like it. I know I have leaks, I wake up at times and reset the machine to 20 mins ramp. I do not think that knowing daily rates is of any help to you, but if you are worried, discuss it with your sleep clinic, they will have many machines like yours out there and may have an idea of what the "normal" leak rates are.....Try some minor mask adjustments and see if things improve..

[Brian2]

Update

Hi All,
I think that you are right on the ball Nuneationman. I am spending too much time lookig at figures when i should just be happy that i am feeling better. I think it is part on the learning curve and if there is room for even more improvement........I thought I should update you on last night. I increased the minimum pressure to 8 from 4 and work up about 4 o'clock after 6 hours sleep. I had a quick look at the results and leaks were about 6.2 L/Sec (boo Hiss), but the AHI was down to 2.1 (HI 1.2 & AI 0.9), te best results I have seen. Great I thought, and tried to get back to sleep. I dozed for quite a while (didn't feel all that tired and then nodded off for a short while. The dozing and second sleep was about an hour and a half. I woke up just now and had a look at the results: Leak 6.2 (boo, Hiss again) and the AHI was 5.5 with the HI 4.4 and AI 1.1. So what happened in the last hour and a half?

Would lying awake or dozing give me high readings?
The mask reading was still ***** and excellent (reads 75% of the sleep). Do you think this might suggest that I am getting quality sleep for most of the night (as mask ***** suggests) and then having a couple of bad hours at the end of the night?

Thanks to you all for the feed back.
Brian

[acebass]

Bear in mind that when you are in the deepest part of your sleep cycle your breathing is shallower anyway, and again don't get too hung up o the results and concentrate on how tired/awake/refreshed you feel when you get up...

[gvader]

Hi Brian,

I would stop reading the results completely and just concentrate on how you FEEL that the treatment is going.

I've been on CPAP for just over a month now and am satisfied because of the following 2 points:

1. My wife says that I no longer snore!
2. I don't start nodding off during boring meetings.

These two things alone indicate to me that the treatment is working. Yes I have had some bad nights of sleep and yes I sometimes wake up with what feels like a tornado blowing around my face but overall things are better than they were before.

It is possible to get fixated on statistics, try only looking at the figures once a week or once a month rather than after every session of sleep and you might just sleep easier.

Regards,

GV

[chelseauk]

I check my readings once in a while just to make sure i've not suddenly gone from 2 APH to 60 (ie my pre-treatment rate)! And i totally ignore the leak rate all the time the APH is at a resonable amount (ie <5 which is normal).

If my wife says i'm not snoring, I feel okay and my mask doesn't make raspberries - then I'm happy.

[Joe McManus]

Another point to keep in mind is how those machines can possible get an accurate leak rate. There is no flow meter in your throat that sends back data to the machines. There are no thermistors all around the mask's edges to sense leakages.

The data the machine presents are based on algorithms. They take a few data points, do some fancy maths with them and spit out a number which is definitely NOT based on 100% accurate input. They're just a good guess. A point of reference.

If they say night in night out that you leak 4 liters and this doesn't change and you feel great then that number is fine. If it shoots up to 8, then there's a relative increase of 100%, that's when you may want to worry about it.

Perhaps in this case ignorance is indeed bliss. Let technology be and listen to your body instead. Then let the docs comment at the 6 month follow-up.

[Brian2]

I think you all have hit the nail on the head. I am going to ignore the results and just go on how I feel. Which is OK. Getting tied up in read-outs can be adictive <g>. Last night I had the best AHI ever: 2.8 with AI at 0.1 and HI at 2.7, but with a mask fit of *** and GOOD and a leak rate of 0.52. Figure that lot out.

Thanks for everyones advice.

Brian

[SteveP]

Perhaps in this case ignorance is indeed bliss. Let technology be and listen to your body instead. Then let the docs comment at the 6 month follow-up.

Spot on I think....

I too love statistics and numbers, and I was disappointed when the Sleep Clinic gave me a ResMed S6 (no display at all, except for the number of hours used so far). So I can only rely on how I feel, and my wife's report on my no-snoring nights. When there is a significant leak, the noise wakes one of us up. If the mask is dislodged, I feel the pain, so I wake up. I don't need the machine to tell me...

Good luck Brian!

SteveP