High Hypopnea#s
Hi there! New to the boards here...
My hypopnea #s can vary from 11(lowest once) to 76(highest once) - should I be concerned about low oxygen levels? most often, it's anywhere from 20-something to 40-something and then popping up over 50-60 once a week or ten days.
My Clear Away and Obstructive #s can be from 0&0 to as high as 10&12 but in any combination. Clear aways are usually 0-3 and Obstructive maybe 1-6 and then for whatever reason, spiking high.
And combining all the #s into AHI, in whatever combinations they've been, my lowest has been 1 and highest, 9.7 but usually reading from high 4.something to about 6ish. 5.somethings are most common.
I haven't consulted with the tech who issued the machine since 2 weeks after I got it and haven't talked to my dr since the beginning of Feb, main reason being I went on a 3 week vacation to Central America (took my machine with me) and then got pneumonia when I got home and got treatment from a walk in clinic.
At the beginning of Feb when I saw my GP, she said to use it for awhile and see if the #s evened out. And up till now, I've been waiting for the 6wk xray to make sure I'm clear of pneumonia. Strangely enough, my very best AHIs were on my sickest days of pneumonia... AHIs of 2 & 1, and then it all started to climb again.
I know I'm feeling much more clear minded than before my machine, but not feeling as good as I'd like.
Unfortunately, I was very sick with one of those respiratory viruses in Jan for about 2 weeks and I believe it was a residual of that that brought on the pneumonia. I kept telling the people I was travelling with that I nevwer would have been able to keep up with them if I hadn't had my CPAP with me, but toward the end of the trip, going up 3 flights of stairs would leave me gasping for air..... I started getting chills and fever 5 days after I got home and went to the walk in clinic 4 days after that. Pneumonia is brutal. hahaha In all of that sickness, though, I haven't missed a night!
ALLLLL that to say, it's been hard to track how well the CPAP is working for me but I AM concerned about the hypopnea numbers.
So I hope that's all understandable!
04-27-2018, 05:02 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-27-2018, 05:05 PM by mesenteria.)
RE: High Hypopnea#s
A few hypopneas each hour is to be expected for those of us with OSA. As your numbers rise, though, it stands to reason that you are becoming increasingly poorly oxygenated over time. Pick the time period...a minute, an hour, all night long......with hypopneas and obstructive events rising in number, you can be virtually assured that your saturation is being compromised.
That understood, let's take a deep breath and look critically, analytically, at those numbers. They may be fluctuating, but they hover closely around the 'treated' number of 5 for AHI. I believe some well-meaning people with a lot of experience will soon chime in and help you to fine tune your machine's settings to get them under 5 almost all the time.
RE: High Hypopnea#s
Hi S. Ann,
Welcome to the forum. I assume you getting your numbers from Dream Mapper which gives you very limited data. I suggest you down load sleepy head which will give you very detailed data with which you can dial in your settings.
I assume that you will need to raise your minimum pressure to help clear up your hypopneas. But we need to see what Sleepy Head shows before I would recommend doing so. What is your 90% pressure in Dream Mapper?
RE: High Hypopnea#s
S. Ann
Welcome to the forum. I have received great advice and help from this forum and I feel you will also.
RE: High Hypopnea#s
90% pressure means that your unit spent 90% of the time at that pressure or lower. A simple rule of thumb is that your minimum pressure should be set at 2 cm lower than your 90% pressure. This is especially true for those of us who use Respironics machines. In my case, my 90% pressure averages around 9.5 and my minimum pressure is 8.5. This setting clean up my hypopneas very well and my average AHI is consistently below one. My prescribed minimum pressure is 7 and at that setting my average AHI was around 2.5 with a majority of hypopnea events.
RE: High Hypopnea#s
Is it an obstructive hypopnoe or a central one?