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Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
#1
Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
Brief background: Trouble sleeping for years, have been steadily on sleeping pills for over a year because I 100% couldn't fall or stay asleep. Finally did a sleep study and got a Resmed Airsense 11. I've been using it a bit over a week. A few days ago I finally tried not taking a sleeping pill, and was shocked it worked. I could fall asleep, I'd still wake up sometimes, but I could easily fall back asleep. I was diagnosed with MILD sleep apnea, 6.8 RDI per hour, 1.1 AHI, 89% blood oxygen.

I feel like things are going good and progressing, but I just want to address one concern, which is the blood oxygen levels while I'm sleeping. This is reported from my Garmin Fenix watch, which yes I know isn't a medical device so take it with a grain of salt, but I'm hoping there's still SOME level of accuracy to it. While I definitely feel like I'm sleeping MUCH better, I'm still waking up a bit tired (not near as much), minor headache. I know it can take weeks for your body to adjust to the APAP machine, so this could be nothing and I just need to give it more time. But would like other opinions. Wondering if maybe my pressure setting could be too low? My blood O2 graph from the Garmin is still showing a lot of dips in my blood O2 levels.

Not 100% sure interpreting the Oscar data, doesn't seem like the machine is picking up many events, so maybe things are fine and I'm just worried about nothing and should just continue giving it more time to adjust?

ResMed Airsense 11
Auto 5-20 range
EPR on, set to 1

   

And the O2 graph from my Garmin (I know it might be difficult to match this up with Oscar, so grain of salt)

   

Thanks
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#2
RE: Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
Your AHI numbers are very good, but with your complaint of morning headaches, that could be from low oxygen levels. Even though your average levels read 96%, it does appear that your levels dip during the night. Note: I'm not too good at reading the Garmin, so another opinion could be in order.

It wouldn't hurt to have your doctor check on your overnight levels.

Also, it appears you are using the ramp setting to start at 4. This is pretty low and looks like you may be struggling for air during that time. I would turn that off, and adjust the minimum pressure to 8cm. This alone may help with your oxygen level dipping.
Leave your EPR set at 3.
OpalRose
Apnea Board Administrator
www.apneaboard.com

_______________________
OSCAR Chart Organization
How to Attach Images and Files.
OSCAR - The Guide
Soft Cervical Collar
Optimizing therapy
OSCAR supported machines
Mask Primer



INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE.  ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA.  INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
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#3
RE: Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
(03-31-2022, 01:21 PM)OpalRose Wrote: Your AHI numbers are very good, but with your complaint of morning headaches, that could be from low oxygen levels.  Even though your average levels read 96%, it does appear that your levels dip during the night.  Note:  I'm not too good at reading the Garmin, so another opinion could be in order.

It wouldn't hurt to have your doctor check on your overnight levels.

Also, it appears you are using the ramp setting to start at 4.  This is pretty low and looks like you may be struggling for air during that time.  I would turn that off, and adjust the minimum pressure to 8cm.  This alone may help with your oxygen level dipping.
Leave your EPR set at 3.

Thanks! New here and after posting this started reading over various other threads and saw some similar information, so was considering making similar adjustments. Definitely makes sense, will be giving that a shot tonight.
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#4
RE: Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
I use the fitbit charge 4 which gives blood oxygen levels ... I also have a device that connects to my finger and records the info while I sleep.. and then I import that to OSCAR ..  I find that the fitbit can sometimes show a low O2 level and it is NOT confirmed by the finger device.. other times the fitbit seems to match the other unit ... so I would take the fitbit results with a grain of salt... but get a unit that records the O2 accurately and import to OSCAR .
Resmed Airsense 11/Resmed N20 memory foam mask,cervical collar, MyAir software, OSCAR for data analysis
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#5
RE: Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
follow up to my  previous post:  Last night my fitbit showed an Ave of 94% with three low readings.. one of which was on the 80% line.   my finger sensor showed a median reading of 94%, with the highest reading of 98% and the lowest reading of 90% ... I'm pretty sure the finger sensor is more accurate than the fitbit. I would be chasing my tail if I believed the fitbit was accurate all the time. Fitbit is not all bad .. before cpap, I would regularly get 3 low readings... way beyond the 80% line... after cpap, the fitbit usually shows good readings, but once in a while ( like yesterday) it has an artificial low reading.
Resmed Airsense 11/Resmed N20 memory foam mask,cervical collar, MyAir software, OSCAR for data analysis
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#6
RE: Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
Yeah I definitely take the Garmin data with a grain of salt. I'm mainly trying to pin down what is causing me to wake up. The drops in O2 on the Garmin really seem to coincide with times I can remember waking up at night. Take last night for instance. I know I suddenly woke up sometime just a bit after 11pm. Garmin shows a drop in my O2 for a bit before then, OSCAR shows a ramp up in pressure around that time as well, however it shows no recognizable events detected at that time. I know I woke up more times later in the night as well, which I'll bet likely coincide with the O2 drops later on in the night, but I didn't look at the clock when I woke up those times so I can't know for sure.

Could the increase in pressure be waking me up? If so, what exactly is CAUSING the pressure to increase when there's no events detected on the machine? I'm confused on that.

Last nights data:

   

   
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#7
RE: Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
You have the min =5 and EPR full time= 3. Your pap machine can’t do that. The absolute min any pap machine can go is 4. Your setting min 5 - 
EPR 3 would give you exhale of 2 but it can not go below 4. 

As suggested before set min 7 EPR 3
Apnea (80-100%) 10 seconds, Hypopnea (50-80%) 10 seconds, Flow Limits (0-50%) not timed  Cervical Collar - Dealing w DME - Chart Organizing
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#8
RE: Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
(04-04-2022, 05:36 PM)staceyburke Wrote: You have the min =5 and EPR full time= 3. Your pap machine can’t do that. The absolute min any pap machine can go is 4. Your setting min 5 - 
EPR 3 would give you exhale of 2 but it can not go below 4. 

As suggested before set min 7 EPR 3

So, I did try that and it didn't seem to help, think I actually slept worse that night with the minimum pressure at a higher setting, so I bumped it back down... guess I just forgot to lower/disable EPR again on top of that.

This was the reading from the night I tried 8/3. Charts LOOK good to me (although granted I don't know entirely what I'm looking at), but I continuously woke up throughout the night that night as well, so I tried 7/3 the next night, same thing, so ended up lowering it back down (especially since I have a review with my provider coming up this week and not sure what they'll say about modifying pressure settings on my own - should be the last review with them for a while though I think).

   
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#9
RE: Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
Please define continuously woke up, because I do not see it in the charts.

Why won't 8-20, EPR=3 work today?
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#10
RE: Should I be concerned over this blood oxygen?
Pressure can rise for other reasons, like flow limitations, snores, and sometimes leaks.
But your pressure looks pretty stable except for the first wake up you describe.  
Line that up with the flow limitation graph and you can see a slight rise in pressure.

I also suspect your mask is giving you some issue.  Look at the spikes on the leak graph...
This is more than likely from mask movement, which can be a cause for arousal.

I don't see the pressure being a cause for your "wake ups".
OpalRose
Apnea Board Administrator
www.apneaboard.com

_______________________
OSCAR Chart Organization
How to Attach Images and Files.
OSCAR - The Guide
Soft Cervical Collar
Optimizing therapy
OSCAR supported machines
Mask Primer



INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE.  ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA.  INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
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