...but then, I'm feeling loopy from the Lunesta tonight so I guess confusion is to be expected.

Saw the sleep doc yesterday. He lowered my already lowered settings to 13/8. I expressed confusion/concern over how we can just lower the settings like that...what about the apneas? Both 05 sleep studies resulted in recommendations of 19/15. He had my machine set at 17/12 instead.

His reasoning sort of makes sense. I have few to 0 obstructive events at any of the pressures, so it's not like my airway needs to be splinted open, I just don't breathe, or I breathe shallowly. Friday, someone is coming to my house with a pulse-ox machine for me to use overnight to make sure my oxygen level is okay through the night at the new pressure.

I'm wondering what is the point of using the machine at all? I brought up CSDB but didn't get a response of any kind. So, now it's 4 weeks of the new lower setting (unless the pulse-ox shows something bad) and then another check up with the sleep doc. I'm getting weary of all this. I think the doc doesn't know what to do with me.

Hey Snooze:
When you get the the oximetry report, get the graphs, maybe even in a "2 hour format", or if they use Profox software, grab the whole file.  There may be a clue in there:

More Rantings from TMOAT
sleepydave

I'll ask for all that, but I don't think I got a good study last night. The guy who brought the pulse oximeter to my house said they like at least 5 hours. I fell asleep around 11 and woke up at 3:30AM and wasn't able to go back to sleep. I gave up at 5AM and turned off the bipap and pulse ox.

It took about an hour to fall asleep, and during that time my Sa02 stayed in the high 90's, heartrate high 60's. When I woke at 3:30 (still on my left side), my heartrate was in the high 80's and the Sa02 reading was wonky. The readings alternated between numbers and alphanumeric/non-numeric readings. The numbers were very low: 19, 29, 49, 59, and 69, and E9, H9, HL, EL, and 0L, 1L, 2L...9L.

Those low readings look way too low to be real, and I don't know what the other ones mean.

After turning onto my right side, the numbers came back up to normal: 98, 97, and my heart rate went back to high 60's.

I just got word from a friend that the alphanumerics are error codes, but she didn't have a manual to know what they mean.

The machine I was using was a hand held Respironics, and I'm pretty sure it was a 920M. Anyone happen to have a manual lying around?

I have a feeling this means I have to do it over.

I'm a newbie--what the heck is this?

Miss Rumphius wrote:

I'm a newbie--what the heck is this?

Ruh Roh.  Here is sleepydave's "mother of all threads".     

http://www.talkaboutsleep.com/message-boards/viewtopic.php?t=13557&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=2dca9621e417546daeb4b3922d8aeaaa

sleepydave wrote:

Hey Snooze:
When you get the the oximetry report, get the graphs, maybe even in a "2 hour format", or if they use Profox software, grab the whole file.  There may be a clue in there:

More Rantings from TMOAT
sleepydave

I got the pulse ox report today, complete with graphs of the whole night. I'll try to get everything scanned tomorrow. I know nothing about reading these things but overall it looks pretty good to me. This was done with my bipap set on 13/8, and the ODI came out to 6.3 (42 desats during the recording time, including the time I was awake from approx. 3:30 to 5:00.) Am I right in thinking that the time I was awake should be excluded, making the ODI more like 8.4? Either way, I think that is considered mild.They included a list of the top 40 desats and they all occurred before I awoke and saw the wonky readouts on the oximeter.

My graphs don't look anything like the ones in TMOAT example, but maybe that's because I was on bipap during the recording. I don't know what other info from the report is significant. The means look good; Pulse 70, H: 105 L: 59, SpO2 95.5%, H: 99 L: 86.