OSCAR data help

[JLSmith532]

Hey everyone,

I was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea in December and prescribed an AirSense 11 with an AirFit F30 full face mask.  Originally got the at home sleep study due to complaints of waking up feeling unrested along with my girlfriend telling me that I snore and occasionally stop breathing in my sleep.  Other medical history includes high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and occasional flare ups of irregular heartbeats/ectopics, mainly PAC's.  I take Amlodipine and Sertraline daily.  

I've only been using the device for a few days so far and am able to fall asleep just fine with it on.  I wake up after about 4 hours each night just due to the pressure or general discomfort I think.  But usually can fall back asleep within 30-60 minutes.

The main question I have is about the type of apneas.  Even on my sleep study I noticed most of the apneas were "central" and not "obstructive".  Now that I ran the data from the SD card into OSCAR I notice the same thing.  It seems to have gotten rid of most of my "obstructive" events which is great!  But I see no improvement on the clear airway events.

Any ideas or tips on how to deal with clear airway events?  Are the amount that I'm having pretty normal? I appreciate any insight anyone might have.

I attached OSCAR data from last night as well as my initial sleep study report.

Thanks a bunch!

[greatunclebill]

you may need a real in lab sleep study. the technician tries a bunch of pressures with cpap. he could also try bilevel to see if it helps. it's possible you could use a bi-level. cpap can't help you with ca which is stop breathing with no obstruction. bilevel can help. it can help or prompt your breathing. talk to the doctor.

[DaveSkvn]

Its "unusual" to have 80% of the apneas on a sleep study logged as central. I would assume your diagnosis was central sleep apnea rather than OSA. Its not something I have much experience of but CPAP doesn't have a great track record of dealing with CSA - that's more bi level and ASV.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-cond...c-20352114

Most people with OSA have very few central apneas on their sleep study. I don't think I had any. I have one or two CA events logged a night. There is the phenomenon of treatment emergent CAs which some new users get in quantity but they tend to diminish over time but with 80% of your sleep study apenas logged as central that's not "treatment emergent".

As @greatunclebill says, it probably worth gathering data for a week or two and then return to a doctor to discuss.

[Deborah K.]

You may well need an ASV instead of an autoset, but in the meantime raise your starting pressure to 7.  5 is too low for almost all adults.  The 7 will be more comfortable.

If you do a titration study, make sure you ask them to try a Bilevel and an ASV.

[JLSmith532]

Okay thank you all for the responses.  I’m going to keep logging the data for another week or two to see if they decrease and in the meantime bug my sleep doctor.  I haven’t even met with the doctor in person yet but they gave me a “mild obstructive sleep apnea” diagnosis based on that sleep study.

I will also experiment with raising my min pressure.  Thanks!!