Why are my AHI not dropping?

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Permalink Reply by Kath Hope on October 11, 2012 at 15:03

Welcome to our forum Travis.  I just caught your new post as I'm on my way to a meeting, but don't despair as it's very early days for you.  Often a setting of 4 to 20 won't always result in the best AHI so your research is getting you there.  Depending on which machine you have, you may be able to download the free software to get more information.  Here's a link to the other discussion about this DOWNLOAD FREE SOFTWARE.  Hope this helps for now, and I'll be back later.  Meanwhile, others may see this post to jump onboard for help.

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Permalink Reply by Travis Herrman on October 11, 2012 at 15:24

I have been down loading Info and studing it. I am thinking if you raise the bottom leval up you can take care of the bottom number of problems. That should be enought to get to the magic number of 5 AHI. I see VS is a big number in my numbers. 10.0, 11.0 ,11.3. one of the numbers that havent changed with the up pressure.

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Permalink Reply by Kath Hope on October 11, 2012 at 18:22

Yes, the pressure should be enough to stop the majority of the snoring.

Are you also keeping away from alcohol, nicotine, caffeine + meals before at least 3 hours of bedtime, preferably 4?

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Permalink Reply by Terry Vella on October 11, 2012 at 21:03

Travis, I think you have been given the wrong impression about CPAP, there is no instant fix unfortunately there is a lot of trial and error in this and you have to be patient. Some people take months to get used it and bring their numbers down for some it could be overnight. There are so many different factors in play here. Another one is how long you have had undiagnosed SA for your body and brain has to heal. You are on a very high number 20 so you must have been very bad and possibly for a long time. What was your AHI at your sleep study. You don't look at it like it has to be under 5 overnight, you look at like I stopped breathing say 60 times and hour now it's 6 times an hour and in the future it maybe 3 times an hour etc. The other thing is AHI's on our machines are not as accurate as a sleep study so many thing effect our numbers, here are some, temperature, weather, meds, when we eat, what we eat, what we drink, body movement during the night,etc,etc,etc. I say this is a marathon not a sprint, unfortunately this doesn't help your work situation but it will help and possibly save your life. What CPAP do you have and what mask? There are lots of things we can suggest to help with those as well. This is frustrating but well worth it in the long run.

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Permalink Reply by Lisa on October 23, 2012 at 23:38

Travis, I have just seen your post and am wondering how you are getting on now.  Getting AHI below 5 seems quite an ambitious goal to me. I have no experience of your particular machine, so can't speak for it, but some machines seem to be a bit free recording hypopneas. My own machine tends to over record them, so quite often my AHI will be above 5, but the AI, the apnoea index is usually 1 or 2 at most. An AHI of 6 wouldn't seem that bad to me if the AI part of it is low.

Hope all is going well for you.

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Permalink Reply by Travis Herrman on October 24, 2012 at 3:31

Hey, Thank you for asking about how I'm doing. Here's how it's going. This 5 or under on the AHI is the line the government is trying to pass for truck drivers. They have not been able to pass it yet but are still trying. My company said they will implement it before the government makes it mandatory. SO Now I have had it 2 weeks and my AHI is at 5.0 average and my 90% keeps dropping and now is at 10.5 to 11. After learning all I could and taking the help I got from the people on these websites, I am learning to tweak my machine to get the best and the fastest out come. I got to go back to work yesterday after 5 weeks off (nice Vacation). Some days my AHI will be 2.0 and some days it will be 8.0, I haven't figured that out yet, but I have found out that if I set my humidifier too high my AHI goes up, and I have a habit of laying in bed for about an hour before I can get to sleep and YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THAT cause my machine takes every breath you take that isn't perfect and records it as an apnea. One more thing it look to me that my VS is what keeps me from being a 2.0 or lower all the time. I need a cure for that. My biggest problem now is that I was never tired, I slept through the night, and I had no problem with tiredness, so this getting a sleep apnea machine isn't the life changing experience everyone selling them told me it would be. But I an tolerating it so far with no choice.

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Permalink Reply by Terry Vella on October 24, 2012 at 3:42

Travis, you seem to be learning some of the tricks of CPAP, just one thing, CPAP doesn't help you sleep, it helps you breathe and the by product should be better sleep because you are not waking as much not breathing, you also have the added benefits of increased blood flow and oxygen to your body and brain. The other benefit is just quality of sleep should be better because you should be getting through sleep cycles now where before you probably weren't and you should be less stressed because REM sleep is when our stresses are released. 

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