New to Oscar - hoping someone can help analyze my data

[bitteroblivion]

Hello all! I am a 31 y/o female that just got diagnosed last month (16.4 AHI); suspected deviated septum / narrow nasal passages. Sleep about 60% on my back and 40% on side.
I have been on an Resmed Airsense 10 machine for the last month; there was some initial struggle with a mask that I felt was suffocating me (the dreamwear nasal) which was causing a lot of anxiety and lack of sleep, however after switching to the N30 mask about 3 weeks ago it's been mainly smooth sailing ever since. My AHI's are now from 0 to 1.3 (highest it's ever been), with a nightly average of about 0.4. That being said, despite feeling mentally and physically adjusted, I continue to wake up a lot throughout the night which is abnormal for me (I don't need to use the bathroom, I just become wide awake multiple times a night and feel very restless). I also have to adjust the mask on my nose sometimes, so perhaps that's a factor?
Wondering if someone would mind analyzing my data to see if there's any reasons why I may be so exhausted, and also I'm just someone who loves to understand things relating to my health / feel educated. If there's anything you see that's odd, feel free to tell me.

I’ve been reading up online and following the Wiki Oscar page, but still find it quite confusing. My sleep therapist has told me since day one everything looks perfect, but of course I get onto Oscar and see all this stuff and am overwhelmed wondering if that's true or not. I also regularly think to myself, do I even need a cpap?! Was it all a sham?! but that's probably just my anxiety and paranoia lol - I have trust issues. It seemed a little too good to be true that I've had close to 0 AHI's since the first night of starting treatment.. I wasn't presented with any alternatives to CPAP and am curious if I would be a candidate / if a cpap is necessary? I spend about 50% of my life travelling aka this has been a tough diagnosis.. and am currently waiting to see an ENT to discuss options.

Here is 3 days worth of data:

https://imgur.com/a/6xwlKSV

[Pugsy]

I have noticed central apneas / clear airways which I didn't know I had (I was told during my sleep studies I only have OSA) - is it common to see a couple of those in Oscar?

Yes. It's normal to see occasional central flags. Some might be a real asleep central and some might be awake/arousal related flagging.

[bitteroblivion]

thank you! curious if you see anything abnormal about my data / that could be causing waking up a lot?

[Pugsy]

thank you! curious if you see anything abnormal about my data / that could be causing waking up a lot?

I don't download stuff so I couldn't see your images. Now if you post a link to an actual image then I would look.

But in general we can't see wake ups or the whys behind the wake ups unless there is a truckload of apnea events that we might blame the wake up on some sort of respiratory event.
Most of the time the arousal comes from some sort of spontaneous arousal that we don't know what caused it.

Do you take any meds of any kind? Sometimes medication side effects play a factor in spontaneous arousals.

2 types of arousals.

1...spontaneous which means we don't know the cause but could be related to anything. CPAP won't help with those.
I myself get a lot of these arousals but in my case I know the cause....pain.

2...respiratory related arousals and cpap can help with those.

To fix the problem you gotta try to figure out what caused the arousal in the first place.
A chore that is easier said than done.

[bitteroblivion]

Oh I apologise! Wasn't sure the best way to upload photos since attachments aren't working here. The link I initially had was to view photos in a google drive document, no downloading necessary.

But here you go!

https://imgur.com/a/6xwlKSV

[Pugsy]

As expected....nothing of great excitement showing up on those reports. Nothing just screams out "this cause a wake up".

When you have time take a look here and review the graphs and format of the reports that we like to see.
http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t1585 ... eview.html
We don't need or want all those graphs and hide the calendar as well...it is useless and having it showing hides some potentially useful information in the statistics below the calendar.

No need to redo these images though. I mention it for future posting of report images.

It's normal to wake during the night (especially after REM stage sleep cycle completion). So how many times do you think you woke up?
Is this a normal number of wake ups for you?

Answer the meds question please????
And do you have any other physical or mental health issue that could also be impacting sleep quality?
You are young....any chance small children also playing a role in the wake ups?

[bitteroblivion]

thank you for educating me / helping me out! apologies I missed the medication question. I am on prescribed 0 medications, I do take 2 magnesium and 1 probiotic every night which I've been doing for months (never caused any issues). The waking up throughout the night has started since CPAP treatment started. I am probably waking up 4-7 times, with more difficulty falling back asleep the later in the morning it is. Pre-treatment I really wasn't waking up at all.

Could you share which graphs would be the important ones to share moving forward?

I most definitely have chronic anxiety and depression, and ADHD - I've always been someone who takes awhile to fall asleep, but once I'm asleep I usually don't wake up until my alarm goes off. I sleep with earplugs, an eyemask, white noise etc - so I'm used to being out like a light until now. These sleep disturbances are new. No kids, just a partner who usually falls asleep on the couch most nights so I'm often sleeping alone (with my cats, but they don't wake me or bother me).

[Rubicon]

Feel like doing SleepHQ?

Little better way to quantify your TWA.

[Rubicon]

Also what do you have for sleep studies?

Why did you opt to get evaluated in the first place?

[bitteroblivion]

went to a sleep clinic (Sleep Theurapetics) and did a take home test. I had an absolutely horrendous sleep/issues setting things up - AHI was 13. We decided I'd take the test back home for the weekend to try again as she figured my arousals were probably worse if I was awake a lot during the initial study. So I did, and they found my AHI's were more like 16.5

My friend got diagnosed and her and I have always had similar issues over the years so it was a bit of a lightbulb moment and I decided I should try too. I've spent my entire life chronically exhausted and just thought it had to do with chronic depression / my recent adhd diagnosis. I've never once felt rested or woken up because I wanted to... always purely out of obligation. That, combined with having sinus tacchycardia / cardiology visits (my resting HR is high and it doesn't go as low as they'd like when I sleep), being told about some snorting issues + very squeaky nasaly snores, high cortisol problems and hair loss etc are what made me think maybe I had sleep apnea.

[bitteroblivion]

Feel like doing SleepHQ?

Little better way to quantify your TWA.

never heard of it! downloading now

[Trivium91]

thank you! curious if you see anything abnormal about my data / that could be causing waking up a lot?

Waking up frequently on CPAP is normal until you get used to it. Im about 6 weeks in and I sleep much better because im starting to sleep for longer stretches throughout the night. I too had sleep anxiety because of unresolved apnea, and some nights I still do though its typically when im less tired because I overdid it on my workout. Some nights I will sleep all the way to 5AM now, and I go to bed at 10:30. Though it takes alot of time and dedication with the machine to get to the point because your subconscious mind needs to get used to it, even if your conscious mind already is. Its also normal to wakeup once or twice every night, especially one you hit your 30's and onward. Nothing in your data stands out as to why you would be waking up though, everything looks really good though without zooming into the flow rate it's hard to say.

What I like to do is use the machine in the evening for 30-60 minutes every single night. Than i hold my breathe to cause the machine to ramp up to my highest pressure (12 in this case), than I try and get comfortable with that while practising guitar or watching TV. It also nice to know that CPAP does not force air down your neck, it just maintains the pressure and thats its, so there is a bit of a mental game there aswell to get over.

As far as the narrow airways, you can zoom in on the flow rate and take a look which may indicate UARS or something else.

Search 'Issue - Arousal/Recovery Breathing' from the guide here for an example of what that looks like: https://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.p ... _The_Guide

Other than that It takes literally months, and I would say a month in is where the magic starts happening. As far as your anxiety is concerned, Its not helping. I would recommend passionflower & valerian for a few months. You can take magnesium L-Threonate, L-theanine & zinc basically every night forever aswell. Vaping CBD flower is really helpful also, not the pens with glycol (it's really bad for your lungs) im talking just a dry herb vaporizer.

[bitteroblivion]

thank you! curious if you see anything abnormal about my data / that could be causing waking up a lot?

Waking up frequently on CPAP is normal until you get used to it. Im about 6 weeks in and I sleep much better because im starting to sleep for longer stretches throughout the night. I too had sleep anxiety because of unresolved apnea, and some nights I still do though its typically when im less tired because I overdid it on my workout. Some nights I will sleep all the way to 5AM now, and I go to bed at 10:30. Though it takes alot of time and dedication with the machine to get to the point because your subconscious mind needs to get used to it, even if your conscious mind already is. Its also normal to wakeup once or twice every night, especially one you hit your 30's and onward. Nothing in your data stands out as to why you would be waking up though, everything looks really good though without zooming into the flow rate it's hard to say.

What I like to do is use the machine in the evening for 30-60 minutes every single night. Than i hold my breathe to cause the machine to ramp up to my highest pressure (12 in this case), than I try and get comfortable with that while practising guitar or watching TV. It also nice to know that CPAP does not force air down your neck, it just maintains the pressure and thats its, so there is a bit of a mental game there aswell to get over.

As far as the narrow airways, you can zoom in on the flow rate and take a look which may indicate UARS or something else.

Search 'Issue - Arousal/Recovery Breathing' from the guide here for an example of what that looks like: https://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.p ... _The_Guide

Other than that It takes literally months, and I would say a month in is where the magic starts happening. As far as your anxiety is concerned, Its not helping. I would recommend passionflower & valerian for a few months. You can take magnesium L-Threonate, L-theanine & zinc basically every night forever aswell. Vaping CBD flower is really helpful also, not the pens with glycol (it's really bad for your lungs) im talking just a dry herb vaporizer.

Wow thank you so much, all so helpful honestly I think you're right, and I'll tell ya why!! I switched masks last night and went back to the dreamwear one which me and my sleep therapist know caused virtually 0 leaks for me and fit perfect and snug (I'm about to return it to the clinic, they let me keep two for awhile to try them out). I did this to see if my sleep / waking up less improved, and it did not, I still woke up the same amount of times as I do with my preferred n30 mask which does cause a bitttt more leaking (but she says its still miniscule and looking good).

So I think that disproves my initial theory that leaks were what was waking me up! It's gotta be just a subconscious issue like you said, that hopefully will get better with time! Really sucks cause I'm about to travel Europe solo for a couple weeks next week (I go to Europe regularly but haven't been alone) and I wish my body could just FREAKIN adjust faster hahah, but oh well. Such is life.

Great advice re: using the machine for more than just sleeping! My pressure is set to 7-20 but my pressure 95% of the time is at 7.5 and the highest it’s ever had to go is like 10.5, but for most arousals it goes up to like 8.5 - think I should still try your method?

I’m officially 1 month and a couple days in now, yay! I do not feel different WHATSOEVER… was hoping for that miracle cure fix feeling where suddenly I’m not an exhausted zombie, but hopefully with time lol. I know that can take months and months.

I take ashwagandha and zinc (plus random stuff like vitamin b12 vitamin c + cq10 for heart) in the mornings and 2 magnesium glycinates every night along with a probiotic! Gonna look into a few of those other supplements you recommended

Here are some random flow rates... I really struggle figuring these out lol. And don't know what to think, considering I know I'm waking up quite a lot through the night.

https://imgur.com/a/Q2H2kCM

[vandownbytheriver]

Did you join SleepHQ? Time to post a shared link to a night here then.

[bitteroblivion]

Did you join SleepHQ? Time to post a shared link to a night here then.

just did. here you go - appreciate it!

https://sleephq.com/public/925a63ad-ca6 ... f0a7436eaa

https://sleephq.com/public/ce973ab2-2e1 ... 1618c149a9

https://sleephq.com/public/a1da256f-444 ... bc911d0a5e