Hi Jane. That's great news that you're starting to adjust.
SleepyHead and DreamMapper are two different things. SleepyHead is free software that lots of people on this forum use to look at their treatment data. It's much more comprehensive than DreamMapper.
My machine isn't compatible with DreamMapper, but I have seen comments from other people on this forum who use it saying that they like it to give a quick and concise summary of treatment stats. It's handy because you can access it with a smartphone.
The 90% number for your pressure is a percentile value. It means that 90% of your pressure values were at or below the number shown.
Or, to put it another way, your CPAP machine pressure was at or below that pressure value for 90% of the time the machine was on.
The 90% value is useful for seeing how high your machine needed to go to control your apneas.
AHI is your average apnea-hypopnea index for the night, as you probably know from your sleep study. Under 5.0 is considered "treated adequately", but it's usually possible to get values well below 5.0.
Periodic breathing is defined here:
Periodic Breathing If it's happening a lot, it's potentially a concern. If the percentage is very low, then not a concern.
I would adjust the humidity as needed for comfort. If it's too low, it can cause you to wake up with dry nasal passages and mouth. If only your mouth is dry and not your nasal passages, that may be from having your mouth open.
Oh - another important number to look at in SleepyHead is "Large Leaks". Your CPAP machine data screen will also tell you if that is happening.
Your experience with your doctor and your medical device company are what more of us than not experience. Sometimes persistence helps, sometimes not.
I found it very disconcerting to have a sleep doctor show me study results and tell me that I had "SEVERE obstructive apnea", but then not return phone calls when I had problems with using the CPAP machine.
So, SleepyHead. SleepyHead shows you your data in both tables and graphs. Under the "Daily" tab, you will see a chart with tick marks representing each time your machine detects an obstructive apnea, an hypopnea, etc.
There will be a graph for your CPAP machine's pressure that will show how the pressure varied in response to the apnea events.
The flow rate graph is a chart showing your breathing in liters/min.
There's an AHI graph in SleepyHead. That AHI is an hourly moving average. That allows you to see if you are having more apneas during certain periods of the night. Many people do - it can happen because you're in a very deep stage of sleep or in REM sleep, or if you're sleeping on your back.
Since you have an auto-adjusting CPAP machine, it's supposed to vary the pressure as needed to treat your apnea during all stages of sleep.
There's a link at the top of this page where you can download SleepyHead. There is also a wiki called
Beginner's Guide to SleepyHead that is very helpful.
You may want to print out some of it for reference. (The whole thing is 74 pages.)
It's a lot of new terminology, but it becomes familiar pretty quickly.
If you have questions, just ask. You'll generally get an answer pretty quickly.
(06-07-2016, 03:02 PM)JaneAM Wrote: Thanks Everyone for the excellent advice! After night 4, I could say I've moved from "terrified" to "starting to adjust." A few more questions for you experts:
Is Sleepyhead software the same thing as DreamMapper? I have tried to download the DreamMapper that came with the machine but it has yet to work. I've called the medical device company several times - they are not very helpful. I've called the 800 # that is connected with the software but no one ever answers the phone. So thinking maybe I should try to hook up with Sleepyhead software.
I do see some #s on the machine in the morning, but have some questions: Can someone explain the meaning of the "90% Pressure" reading? I have gotten values of 14, 10.5, 9.5 - but don't know what that means.
Can someone explain the meaning of the "Periodic Breathing" reading? I have gotten values of 3%, 0%, 1% - but again, not sure what that means.
My AHI # has been pretty varied - 11, 21, 7, 17. I will try to increase the humidity and see if that helps. (Sleep lab AHI was 31)
Thanks to all who are helping me with this! You are much more helpful than either my doctor or my medical device company - both are quite hard to reach on the phone to explain things to me.