RE: AHI Accuracy from Brand to Brand
(03-26-2018, 09:25 AM)bonjour Wrote: You ca decrease your EPR from 3 to 1 and see what happens. Sometimes CA is caused by pressure changes. BUT, at this time you do not have an issue with CA events, at least numerically. With your numbers your focus needs to be on how you feel.
Your AHI and CA events should be watched. Look at an AHI of 5 (in your case) for several days as a point to revisit your numbers and the balance of OA and CA events.
How do you feel? Are you sleeping thru the night or are you waking up or disturbed several times a night? A better point to take action on, do not chase numbers!
Thanks for the comments Fred. Yes, I will try reducing the EPR or turning it off to see what that does. I will probably wait now until I get my own machine. On the feeling issue, that is hard for me. My wife got into the CPAP thing because she was getting very poor sleep, and now she feels much better because she is sleeping with the CPAP. She in fact liked the F&P and though it was one of the best sleeps she's had. On the other hand I have always slept well, but snored. On a regular doctor check up I got cornered into doing a questionnaire, and that led to the sleep test which got me to the CPAP. I can't say I feel much better now because I didn't feel bad before. That said I probably do feel slightly better, and my wife says I have stopped snoring, so I guess that is a good thing....
After I get my head around this new stuff, I will start a new thread to discuss and ask for help. I take a beta blocker, metoprolol, for blood pressure that acts by slowing your heart rate. That might be part of my issue. Perhaps I can change the time of day I take it to reduce the effect it has at night.
RE: AHI Accuracy from Brand to Brand
A reduction of EPR and maximum pressure of 11.0 seem in order. While the AHI numbers are much less important than your comfort and sleep quality, they are an indicator of sleep disturbance. Your pressure has an unnecessarily wide range and you may not need so much EPR at those relatively low pressure. It might not hurt to keep the Resmed until you get another night or two to sort out the events.
RE: AHI Accuracy from Brand to Brand
(03-26-2018, 11:03 AM)Sleeprider Wrote: A reduction of EPR and maximum pressure of 11.0 seem in order. While the AHI numbers are much less important than your comfort and sleep quality, they are an indicator of sleep disturbance. Your pressure has an unnecessarily wide range and you may not need so much EPR at those relatively low pressure. It might not hurt to keep the Resmed until you get another night or two to sort out the events.
I think I will wait for my AirSense 10 which should be here later this week. At this point, I am thinking my "go for broke" settings are 9 min, 11 max, and EPR off. The issue with the F&P is that if I do that I will be blind to what it does, other than the overall AHI number. I may try that tonight just to see what happens to the AHI. But one really needs the detail to sort this out.
RE: AHI Accuracy from Brand to Brand
I agree, and would add only that your comfort and sleep is the ultimate goal. Numbers may be a way to get there but don't put all your focus there.
RE: AHI Accuracy from Brand to Brand
I'm new to CPAP (and not having a good time of it, but that's for another post). I hired a current model auto DreamStation and while my AHI was below 5 about half the time, it often went above 10.
I went to see the sleep doctor again, and he sent me back to the CPAP provider to discuss different masks and stuff. She swapped me to a brand new F&P auto unit. Same settings, but now my AHI is never above 3, and usually much lower, mostly zero point something. That's often a factor of 10 times lower!
My condition is definitely not suddenly now ten times better, so the only difference can be that the machines are calculating apneas very differently, which means (to me) that the AHI numbers are basically useless.
Sadly, the new F&P machine doesn't work with SleepyHead, so all I get is the AHI on the machine and the near useless F&P app that doesn't even give apnea totals like the DreamStation app did.