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Doctor ordered a CPAP sleep study
#11
RE: Doctor ordered a CPAP sleep study
I'm not really sure when it's appropriate to start a new thread but I'll start here and see if it works. I'm still trying to understand what these graphs mean. 

I had one rare night where I had an AHI of zero and my flow rate graph looked pretty smooth, without a lot of spikes.
   

But most nights, regardless of my AHI, the graph looks pretty spikey. Here's the overview of last night, which I think was a pretty good night as it goes:
   

The question I have is, looking at a zoomed in, roughly 10 minute portion of the night, do these spikes likely represent RERAs and likely arousals? Or is it possible to know what they mean at all?
   

Even if they are micro-arousals, it seems like quite a lot for a short period of time. Am I looking at this right?

As always, I really appreciate all of the support I get from this forum. I can't imagine figuring all of this out on my own.
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#12
RE: Doctor ordered a CPAP sleep study
Periodic breath spikes can be caused by several things, with the most common being periodic leg movements, hypnic jerks and recovery breaths from flow limits. The presence of spikes above and below the normal flow rate is very common and is visible to some degree in all charts, so it may also be considered "normal" and not indicative of anything. The close up shows a lot of jagged tops and downward sloping inspiration peaks that indicate flow limitation, and this would probably show more clearly in a closer 3-4 minute zoom. I think we have consistently seen this in your results. The "spikes" are probably a recovery breath that may or may not be accompanied by arousal. I see similar spikes in my own results and don't think about it too much. I think if you look at other therapy threads on the forum, you might find this is a pretty common feature of flow rate graphs and goes farther into the "rabbit hole" than we really need to obtain good therapy.
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