I'm new to this forum, and recently diagnosed with sleep Apena but I don't know how many years this has been going on.
I've had my 1st sleep study very recently and they don't give the AHI, but they do give the RHI but know how to compare it.

Quote:

The patient had respiratory disturbance index of 58.2 and had a large number of sleep apneas of 26 averaging 48.4/hour of sleep with a mean duration of 23.8 seconds, the longest being 36.7 seconds. The patient also has 41 of central apena averaging 7.5 per hour of sleep with a mean duration of 16.3 seconds and the longest duration of 24.7 seconds. Oxygen saturation was 85%. The patient's RDI got rather severe in the supine position at 92.5 and the patient spent 61.5 of sleep in the supine position.

Quote:

The patient had a large number of arousals averaging 57.6 per hour of sleep, majority of which are respiratory arousals that is 51.6 per hour of sleep.

Good news at least - average heart rate of 68 - an no arrhythmias documented.

The raw numbers scare me a bit, 41 central, 266 obstructive, and 11 mixed apena events over the sleep study.

I do know what obstructive apena is but still trying to learn about central apena and is 41 central apena (also had 11 mixed (central+obstructive) normal / what are some causes for central.

This is all new to me. I go for CPAP / sleep study tomorrow in fact. I'm very happy I've found this forum. How bad is this?

Hi etemptest,

Good luck with the next part of the study where they test you with cpap.

The RDI is usually the same as AHI, and yours is in the severe category.  (mild is 5-15 per hour; moderate is 15-30; severe is 30 or more per hour)  Your sleep apnea is a lot worse when you sleep on your back (supine).  It's typical for it to be worse while on your back.  Your oxygen levels got low, that typically happens with untreated sleep apnea.  I don't know how the central apneas will affect your cpap treatment.  But the overwhelming number is obstructive, most typical of sleep apnea; and cpap therapy should help considerably.  But they will know for sure with this second study.


Linda


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Linda, thank you for the information, very late response but do appreciate it.

Can't believe a few months short of a year since this post, but I wanted to give you an update.

For the first few months, I had trouble adapting to the CPAP machine.
I followed the advice of wear as long as you can, then take off for the rest of the night.

Issues was heart beating too fast, couldn't breath. I don't want to call it a anxiety or panic attack but it pretty much sounds like I was having those with the machine.

It took a tweak in air pressure + anti-anxiety medicine, but once that happened, I was able to use the CPAP machine as intended.

I still have great difficulty getting up in the morning but I have so much energy during the day.

It has made a huge difference. Even more when over two time's I've ran out of medicine / started to not be able to use the machine and could really feel it the next day. I've also learned I had to have the humidifier on full.

Despite making it past this hurtle, my next one will be losing weight. I don't have a copy of my chart but doctor did tell me that I still had apena events while being on the machine (from the sleep study) but the treatment has helped a lot.

I do have to lose at least 40 lbs, then he will do another sleep study to determine if weight is the issue or weight is not one of the issues.

What are something that helped people to make life changes (diet and exercise).

I did a double-take when I saw the dates of these posts!

I'm so very glad things are working out for you.  So many say they experience the sort of anxiety you described and I know that must be the worst thing to overcome.  But you've perservered, I'm so very glad to know.  

Did I read this right, you were able to not use the anxiety meds eventually?  Or less of it?  That must be terrific to be able to do that.  

Don't look to me for advice on weight loss and exercise.  I'm a mess.  I feel so much better with cpap (I never want to go back to how I felt before cpap), but cpap didn't cure everything for me.  
 

My only advice on exercise is to find exercise that is fun for you, otherwise it's just plain work.  For awhile I went to an indoor heated pool facility (mostly for my arthritic knees).  The place was for folks like me who needed more of a theraputic pool.  I used the open swim, and I really enjoyed that, and it helped my knees alot.  Unfortunately once I started working full time again, I couldn't take advantage of that place because of the hours.  But I loved it.  

Good luck to you.  And congratulations to so much more improvement with your use of cpap.  You should be plenty proud of yourself.  The beginning isn't so easy for many people, and you're a great example of the need to keep at it, to tweak or try things to make it work better.  Congrats, kiddo!
 


Linda


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