Newbie - need info on central apneas and other questions...

[eseedhouse]

And what bothers me most is again CA - last night I had 9 of them! And that is almost half of value I had during sleep study (20)! And 9 of them disperse during approx. 4 hour of sleep while on my slep study i had 20 during approx 6 hour of sleep.

CA's are common during the "getting used to" phase of PAP therapy, and that usually takes at least a month or so. Your AHI remains below 5, so it isn't time to panic. Also the length of any apnea episode is important, but you don't mention that. If these are 10 second CA's they are probably not all that important. If they go over 20 seconds you should perhaps mention that to your doctor. Also these events often happen while you are not asleep yet, in which case they should be ignored.

[DariaVader]

with respect to feeling better even though AHI is higher - remember, If you are not in deep sleep AHI can be low, but sleep still not optimal! I have found that as my body trusts that it may sleep more deeply, I have a higher AHI, but deeper more restful sleep. AHI is one datapoint among several

[arminio]

Last night was better - lower AHI (3.2) but stil 8 CAs for 5 hours of sleep (lower number of OA and HA reduced AHI from 4 to 3.2)

I checked duration and CAs are mostly 10-13 seconds long. Last night most of them were clustered close and somewhere in the middle of sleep time - and mostly after some minor mask leaks when pressure was around 9-10... Could be that I turned around in bed...

Anyway, even doctors told me that primary I need to feel better and then check AHI

But, you know, when you see some numbers, you can't help yourself

Well, I'll continue to monitor CAs and see how'll things go in days (nights ) that follow. My main worry is that I am starting to have more CA's instead less of them - which is now the case! At sleep study I had 20 in 5 and half hours (but that was nothing comparing to OA+HA that goes over 200), while at the beggining of therapy I had 3, 4, 5, even 0 CA in 4-5 hours of sleep - and now after 2 weeks on CPAP, CA started to occurs more - up to 8-9 times in 5 hours which makes me worried a bit because looks like number of CA increasing instead decreasing...

Also, just out of curiosity, I asked my "medical dealer" that provide me with S9 AutoSet I use, is it possible to get BiLevel version - and answer is: unfortunatelly, not for now because BiLevel machines are not covered by any medical insirance in my country, and also, doctors here does not prescribe them due to that fact and the fact that patient must have really bad case of CA just to consider that option... I hope I am not in that category (and according to sleep study, looks like I am not?).

[DeepBreathing]

Arminio, I don't think your centrals are any reason to fret. The numbers are so low it doesn't even count as a clinical condition. (8 events in 5 hours sleep is only 1.6). It's time to relax and go with the flow. Your overall numbers are good but they will jump around a bit while you adjust to the machine. I suggest you don't look at the numbers for a week, then see what the overall trend is.

Sometimes we obsess about the numbers and forget that the object is to have a restful sleep.

[arminio]

Sometimes we obsess about the numbers and forget that the object is to have a restful sleep.

Exactly! And exactly what my doctor told me
And in last few days I really become obsessed with thinking "what AHI will be tomorrow" and "will CA be more or less than last night" - instead sleeping and be relaxed.

Definitelly not good way to fight apnea...

Thank you all for lot of support and tips!

I will continue with my CA related posts here if needed in days to follow, and because I have a lot of other questions about CPAP, I'll start another threads because other thing about CPAP therapy that interrests me are not CA related...