Possible treatment for central sleep apnea

[PaulaO2]

I just don't see how a single fatty meal would interfere with the lung/heart O2/CO2 exchange for the same night. I can see how perhaps it would make you sleep deeper since you are fuller. Or it would perhaps make you sleep lighter because you are fuller or indigestion. But those factors would add more obstructive events, not more central events.

Unless I'm missing something, I don't believe he is suggesting the fatty meal is affecting his lung/heart O2/CO2 exchange. Rather, he's postulating that it's impacting his brain function (in a positive way) and resulting in less CAs.

I don't think he's trying to convince anyone to go buy virgin coconut oil, but it's an interesting observation. I appreciate him sharing it with the forum!

The O2/CO2 exchange is the reason we breathe. With central apnea, the brain is confused as to the amount of each and doesn't see a reason to breathe. So what I said was, I don't see how a high fat meal could confuse the brain.

[PaulaO2]

PaulaO2,

Thanks for your explanation. I never understood the importance of the flow rate.

From what I've heard and read, my average of 10 CSA's per night is much less than what many other people have. I've grateful for that, however, it's not zero.

Even people without sleep apnea are going to have apnea events. It's just something that happens. Else the AHI rule would not exist or would be less than 5 for diagnosis.

There's the diagnosis of mixed apnea but I don't think that is your problem. If you had mixed apnea, the central events would be much, much higher. A regular CPAP/APAP does not treat them so they would not drop in count. So your APAP (I assume you have the Autoset) can detect central events but does not truly treat them.

Some nights I have no CA events. Most nights I have almost as many OA events. There's been a few nights where I have more CA than OA. I'm not concerned about them because they're all real short (10-15 seconds). If they were longer or consistently more numerous, I'd be more concerned. I was one of those patients who, during the sleep test, started having more CA events during the titration. The higher they made the pressure, the more I had them. So we started out at a low pressure then increased it.

Your problem set up (keeping everything the same and keeping complete notes) is exactly what I'm concerned about. I can't do a perfect job unless I kept a journal of everything I did and why. That's not going to happen.

The only practical answer to my problem is to identify the top 4 or 5 of the possible contributing factors and include them in the study. You mentioned a few and I will see how they can be included. If other factors come to mind, please pass them on to me.

Short of doing a perfect job, I'm faced with either discontinuing the study or accepting incomplete results. My results are real and I will be continuing the study of comparing the level of fats in my evening meal to the number of CSA's. That means that, while my results will be incomplete, I will be sleeping better.

Then go for it. I didn't want to necessarily discourage you, but to give you the view of someone outside your own head :grin: The more variables you keep down or keep track of, the better. If I were doing this, I'd keep a journal for, oh, a week. Then look at all the variables and see how many I can track. Then I'd make a spreadsheet of them. I'm not sure if a sliding scale would work (really sucky day = 10, freakin' fantastic day =1) or just simple 1 for yes and 0 for no.

Bad day
good day
work day
play day
yard work
house work
calories
total fat
woke up groggy
woke up ready to go
needed naps
couldn't fall asleep

Then I could see patterns. But I am very, very, very visual so I personally would need some sort of visual graph. Because of the variables, it would take several months of data to determine if there is any relationship between what I eat and the number of CA events.

The biggest flaw in this study is you are both the subject and the researcher. It would be better if you kept the data but didn't look at it. And you gave it to someone else to compile.

[cruzer43]

DeepBreath,

Thank you. Well said.
I should have said exactly that early on.

[Deep Breath]

I just don't see how a single fatty meal would interfere with the lung/heart O2/CO2 exchange for the same night. I can see how perhaps it would make you sleep deeper since you are fuller. Or it would perhaps make you sleep lighter because you are fuller or indigestion. But those factors would add more obstructive events, not more central events.

Unless I'm missing something, I don't believe he is suggesting the fatty meal is affecting his lung/heart O2/CO2 exchange. Rather, he's postulating that it's impacting his brain function (in a positive way) and resulting in less CAs.

I don't think he's trying to convince anyone to go buy virgin coconut oil, but it's an interesting observation. I appreciate him sharing it with the forum!

The O2/CO2 exchange is the reason we breathe. With central apnea, the brain is confused as to the amount of each and doesn't see a reason to breathe. So what I said was, I don't see how a high fat meal could confuse the brain.

Thank you for the clarification, when I read " just don't see how a single fatty meal would interfere with the lung/heart O2/CO2 exchange for the same night.", I read that to mean the actual exchange in the lungs and not the autonomic nervous system function.

Virgin coconut oil is a medium-chain triglyceride, which are known for being reasonably easy to metabolize. That might be the secret, but who knows.

Still an interesting concept and I appreciate the OP for starting the dialog.

[zonk]

coconut oil: Possible treatment for central sleep apnea

I've searched the internet as suggested and cannot find anything on the subject
but find some who claim the benefit of the oil including reduce cholesterol and available for sale
also seen videos from Dr OZ show "coconut oil super powers"
he reveals the 3 most powerful health benefits of this tropical oil
Learn how it can help you lose weight, treat skin conditions and ulcers.

[PaulaO2]

Well, if Dr Oz sez so, then it is.

Ha.

That right there makes me not want to even consider it as a possibility. He's a well paid quack celebrating his overly long 15 minutes of fame.

[jgjones1972]

For any of this to be relevant (and I think Paula hit on this already), one shouldn't be looking exclusively at the number of CA events recorded; but also, and generally more importantly, the duration of the events.

Take this into consideration; I think most would agree that it would be better to have 10 10 second CAs in 8 hours than to have 1 45 second CA in 8 hours.

Also, as Shastzi mentioned, all of this is irrelevant without oximetry data. What if, for instance, when you don't have high fat meals you have 8 CAs, each causing O2 levels to go from 98% to 90%; while on nights that you had a high fat meal you have 2 CAs, each causing O2 levels to go from 92% to 84%. What if the high fat meals were causing you to start out the night with lower O2 levels and this was making your brain more diligent in getting oxygen.

I think Paula already got a pretty good list of confounding variables started, but I think that's just the tip of the iceburg.

[cruzer43]

PaulaO2,

I truly regret using the name of a product (Virgin Coconut Oil) in my study.
I should have never done it because now at least a few people are off in truly unproductive directions.
The thread has now become a discussion on the value of coconut oil and not a discussion on a possible treatment for a type of apnea.

I don't know if I am treating Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Central Sleep Apnea or some other form of apnea. All I know is that my ResScan reporting program identified CSA as one of my apnea problems. The treatment that I have tried is to add fats to my evening meal. Something is working because the number of CSA's, as identified by the ResScan reporting program, is significantly lower. It works!

My hope is that if someone who has Central Sleep Apnea, and is aware of this discussion, tries adding fats to their evening meal and has some success.

[Ugly]

coconut oil: Possible treatment for central sleep apnea

also seen videos from Dr OZ show "coconut oil super powers"
he reveals the 3 most powerful health benefits of this tropical oil
Learn how it can help you lose weight, treat skin conditions and ulcers.

Of course those of us who are allergic to coconut would have an even harder time breathing. No thanks.

---

PaulaO2,

I truly regret using the name of a product (Virgin Coconut Oil) in my study.

Assuming you're not allergic to coconut, would you really want one that ISN'T a virgin? Man, lots of nasty images are filling my mind now.

[PaulaO2]

LOL Yeah, threads on any forum tend to wander from their original purpose. Sometimes a single word or phrase is grabbed and run off with as the topic.

If you have an autoPAP, then you are treating Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Central sleep apnea is treated with a totally different machine. Some people go to great lengths to get their AHI down to as close to zero as possible. They constantly tweak their settings, body position, weight, etc.

And, to be totally technical, it is your machine that is doing all the work and determining if an event is happening. ResScan merely translates the data into a visual format. I find ResScan hard to understand and much prefer the simpler SleepyHead software.

When the machine detects airflow has stopped, it sends out a series of air pulses. Depending on the "echo" of these pulses, it determines if it is an obstructive event (I would assume because the air only goes so far) or a "clear airway" event (the air goes further since there's no blockage).

There is even much debate as to if "clear airway" event is accurate and is a true central event. The only thing it has to go by is those pulses.

This is why sleep studies are so important. The machine only determines the air flow and air pressure. It cannot detect heart rate, limb movement, blood oxygen levels, whether the body struggles or not during an event, etc.

I hope you continue your study and you keep us up to date on how it is going.