Machine AHI Meaning and 80+ Plus Weight Loss

[Mingy]

If I'm understanding right, you've lost a good amount of weight (congrats!  well-done!), and you're wondering if you still need your CPAP.

I have wondered how we can know if our sleep apnea is gone.  I can't imagine it would be possible to determine that while using a CPAP machine, since the positive air pressure would be countering the apnea.  So I'd think it would take a sleep study (without a CPAP).

One could set the machine to pressure of straight CPAP at 4 and see OSCAR results. If AHI is present at 4 then one is benefiting from CPAP therapy while on the regular pressure settings. The pressure of 4 will have little effect on AHI, at least for most of us.

Dave:

I tried your experiment and have intriguing results. I have to find and search my medical records but I believe my untreated AHI used to be in the hundreds.

With the pressure as low as it goes and the machine on CPAP (not auto) I had an AHI of 7 after about 6 hours sleep. 

I went back to sleep again but there is a bug in the machine if you hit "start" twice in short time it buggers up the displayed summary information so it now tells me I slept 39 hours with an AHI of 0.5 so I'll rerun the test tonight. I don't know whether I'll go for 4 or 4.5 or 5 because I felt air starved at 4.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[Gideon]

An AHI of 7 says that you still have Apnea

An AHI of 6 (easier math) means you have a sleep disturbance every 10 minutes.

[SarcasticDave94]

Agreed with bonjour. To me, it still shows and reasonably proves the CPAP is needed for medical therapy to reduce apnea. This is generically meaning whatever apnea related events you're getting. AHI 7 in that test reveals you've got some form of apnea with event occurrence levels that needs CPAP therapy to maintain control. Granted, the only way to get accurate numbers would be a lab sleep study, but this should be helpful to know.

[Hydrangea]

I wanted to pipe in with regard to your comment about having to choose between air-starved and a bloated belly.

Those don't have to be your choices. A higher pressure will prevent you from being air-starved. And to prevent the bloated belly, do a search her for "aerophagia" (I think I spelled that right).

I was having the same problem with find a pressure that doesn't make me feel air-starved, but doesn't go straight to my stomach. I learned some tricks on here, and they've really worked for me. I elevate my head & shoulders just a bit. And I *don't sleep on my left side*. Those 2 things have eliminated the aerophagia I was experiencing.

[SarcasticDave94]

Hydrangea's right, there's actions of pressure changes to address the issues along with physical sleep body positioning that may be needed for you to discover how to sleep most comfortable and healthiest. We're each unique in exact needs, but certain things are a given in my opinion. If you're not comfortable, you're not getting the reset the body needs from sleep. This cycles to poorer health to even less helpful sleep to reduced health and it'll just keep going till something breaks.

I myself need to bias sleeping onto my left due to fighting GERD/acid reflux, which in itself can be linked to Aerophagia/air swallowing. Again for myself, I've got a very messed up back that requires a hospital bed to sleep in, and I must sleep with head of the bed raised up several degrees (haven't measured it) from flat.

Keep fighting to attack your apnea and sleep problems. Post info and we'll help however we can with the info given. I myself believe we've got lots of apnea patients represented here that successfully beat this apnea and sleep disturbance battle every day. Battles like this aren't easy to win, trust me I've got lots of medical battles I'm fighting including apnea, but it's not impossible to beat the medical issue into submission. We're here to help you win it, implying you've got skin in this. The old Yoda phrase Do or Do not, there is no try. Hope you fight to succeed.