AHI says 7.4 still?

[samurai]

Hello.
I had a home sleep study in June 2013 and my AHI was 12.
Bought a Respironics Auto CPAP, and after 8 weeks use, it says that I still have a 7.4 AHI.
Shouldn't it be zero? Why isn't it correcting it all the way when it is an auto? It is set for a range of 4-20.
What should I do? I know that my mask falls off from time to time (the darned alarm doesn't like the pillows), and is this factored in?
Please advise.

[Paptillian]

Hi samurai,

Shouldn't it be zero? Why isn't it correcting it all the way when it is an auto?

If you manage to get zero AHI consistently, please let us know your secret Realistically you should be aiming to keep it under 5.

You could be having leaks but it's hard to say without data. Can you post up your trends from SleepyHead?

Sometimes leaving the machine in a wide-open auto range (4-20) is not as effective as if you narrow the range down a bit. What was your titration pressure from the sleep study? What are your average and 95% pressures from SleepyHead?

[zonk]

Hi samurai, welcome to the forum
Pressure range might need some adjustment, starting @ 4 is too low, for me would feel suffocating not getting enough air to breathe especially if using Ramp too. Whats breakdown of AHI, 90% pressure and leak
How do you describe your sleep quality?

Download SleepyHead software so you can see whats going on
http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-...e-software

[samurai]

Oh wow. You guys are talking over my head here.
My sleep quality today is very poor b/c my darned mask fell off last night; the alarm doesn't like pillows for some reason. Generally, with the CPAP, I am OK. I have some food intolerances too-- different forum. LOL

OK I just downloaded the SleepyHead on my computer. What do I do next?
I did an at home sleep study, and they said that the auto cpap would be all that I needed.

[zonk]

I don,t use Sleepyhead, this should start you off
How to use SH http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-...sleepyhead

SH user guide http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/sl...sers_Guide

SH glossary http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/sl...e=Glossary

SH FAQs http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/sl..._Questions

[Paptillian]

I did an at home sleep study, and they said that the auto cpap would be all that I needed.

Well... technically true... but they're taking the easy way out.

It sounds like you never had a CPAP titration. Good thing is, you have an auto titrating machine so you can do it yourself. They're relying on the machine doing all the work (and it does) but you can take some steps to fine-tune its performance and lower your AHI.

As a start, get your data loaded into SleepyHead. You'll need a card reader on your computer that can read the SD card on your machine. From within SleepyHead you can import the data from the SD card once you've gone through the initial setup and created your patient profile.

Word of warning: For the machine that you have you will need SleepyHead version 0.9.3. That one has fixes specifically for the series 60 Phillips Respironics machines. It only works on Windows at the moment (Mac version is older and doesn't have the fixes).

[samurai]

OK
I will do it. Thank you so much!

[trish6hundred]

Hi samurai,
WELCOME! to the forum.! Best of luck with fine tuning your CPAP therapy and hang in there for more responses to your post

[samurai]

OK.
I have uploaded the information. How do I post this for you guys to have a look at it.
I have not put private information... I didn't HIPAA myself...LOL

One more note: I started using this in June 2013. The data before that is not me.
(I bought this used; I am poor LOL)

[Paptillian]

You can take screenshots and post them here. Use an image hosting site (such as http://www.postimg.org) and then put the direct link to each photo between 'img' tags, like this:

Code:

[img]http://link.to.photo/photo_name.jpg[/img]

The important things to get are the summary page from SleepyHead, which shows trends for the past day, week, month, 6-months, and year. In your case we can look at the 30-day trends (ignoring the older data) to see what your leak rates are.

Also, post up a snapshot of your graphs (from the "Daily" tab in SleepyHead) from the last full night you used your machine.