Low AHI but I don't feel rested

[kinggrayskull]

My AHI is only at 4.2, yet I don't feel refreshed at all!

I feel sleepy the whole day. ZZZZZ!

Beginner here. S9 Autoset was just purchased last week.

[john.michael]

Same here! We have to hang in there, I guess. I just read last night that ahi of 4 is much "worse" than ahi of 2. Mine still hits 8some nights...... Starting week2

Best wishes,
John

[TooGroggy]

What I came to realize pretty quickly when I started CPAP therapy is the a low AHI is necessary but not sufficient to make me feel rested. I had great numbers but I hardly slept for longer than 45 minutes before waking up to deal with a mask leak, a bad pressure point or some other equipment issue.

Two months and seven masks later, things are finally getting better. So hang in there.

[Emilia]

Give it some time..... you have sleep debt to pay off, a body that needs to heal from all the O2 deprivation it has endured. I'm in my 7th month and I am still a lot more tired than I thought I'd be at this point. Some folks are lucky and get that energy quickly, others it can take many months or even a year. My AHI is consistently under 2..... If your AHI is still too high, you should investigate the data (if you have the software for your machine) and see if there are leak issues or maybe a pressure tweaking is in order.

Keep plugging along..... it will get better!

[Pugsy]

Are you aware that there is software available to monitor your progress?

[Twentysix]

My AHI numbers were much lower than yours from the beginning and it still took months to notice any difference. Even now I mainly notice a difference when, for some reason, I have to sleep without the mask for a night (e.g. went camping). Suddenly I felt much WORSE than, what now is, normal. So the improvement maybe subtle, but it will be worth it. Keep going!

[bayourest]

keep a diary of your scores and how you feel (yawning all day, or when? need a nap? snoozing at a meeting? etc) . the doctors all say that AHI below 5 is normal. Maybe so, but it seems possible to tweak and improve. keep asking questions on the forum. I have been on this for 4 mos and I can say that even though my AHI's are usually below 5 (often 3-4) I think they could be better and I am working at it. My worst night on PAP is better than best night without it!!

[BlackSpinner]

It can take up to a month before your brain allows you to sleep deeply. It has spent years trying to keep you alive by being constantly vigilant, you may now have to un-learn this habit.

[john.michael]

I had an AHI OF 3.6 the other night.nice thing was AI: 0.0!! So, no. Apnea events at all, all hypopnea. I didn't feel especially wonderful, but the numbers were promising. Next night, back to 3.6 AI per hour. Still low compared to my sleep study. I'm hoping for those real low AI mums all the time!

[mayondair]

My AHI is only at 4.2, yet I don't feel refreshed at all!

I feel sleepy the whole day. ZZZZZ!

Beginner here. S9 Autoset was just purchased last week.

Patience, Grasshopper! Give yourself a little time to get used to everything. Your ahi is very good for the first week. Only a few have instant, dramatic improvement. Sleep debt is something that affects lots at first. Get some soft wear and start checking your data. Look for trends and patterns of events. You will be able to tweak with more and better info. Kathy

[Pugsy]

Get the software so you can see the events. While the overall AHI is acceptable if you happen to have times where the events come in groups or clusters and the other times nothing at all those times with clusters can stress the body and those will need to be broken up (if you have them) to have a better chance to get better restorative sleep.
Also, how many hours of sleep are you getting? Is it sound sleep or fragmented for some reason?
Best numbers in the world don't mean much if sleep time is fragmented or shortened.
While 1 week is really too soon to expect marked improvement it is not too soon to watch the reports for something that might need improvement on.

Get the software. You won't be sorry.

[robysue]

It can take months for some of us to feel better. And then some of us go through an extended period of feeling significantly worse while adjusting to xPAP before we start feeling better. There is a steep learning curve for learning to sleep with a hose on your nose all night. It is not a natural thing to do after all.

The good news is that most of the problems we face when starting out have been faced by others and with the help of forums like this, the newbies can get lots of quality suggestions on how to address those problems and minimize their impact on the quality of the sleep we're getting during the time we're actively learning how to sleep with the hose.

bayourest's idea of a diary (keep a diary of your scores and how you feel (yawning all day, or when? need a nap? snoozing at a meeting? etc)) is an excellent one by the way: Sometimes the first signs that xPAP is beginning to make a difference are really subtle and easy to miss---particularly if there's a lot of problematic things going on with the CPAP as well. For me, the very first sign that the BiPAP was doing something positive was when I started to notice that the low grade arthritis-type pain in my hands and feet (that I'd had for several years and that was constant) had disappeared: It simply wasn't there in the mornings (when it was always worse) and it didn't return as frequently or as severely during the day---even in rainy, cold, wet weather. The PA in the sleep doctor's office has explained to me that untreated OSA can cause low grade inflammation throughout the body; and that as my body became more acclimated to the xPAP therapy and was no longer experiencing the repeated apnea-related arousals (desats are not a problem with me), the inflammation in my body likely started to decrease. Welcome change. But I'm not sure I would have really noticed it had I not been keeping an insomnia log at the time.

Tips on keeping a sleep diary:

• * Write stuff down in the MORNING after you wake up for the day. Don't try to keep track of stuff at night.
  
  * In addition to your AHI, pressure and leak readings, it may be useful to keep track of the following things---particularly if you are having problems sleeping with the mask for any reason:
  
  • ** Time you went to bed and time you got up for the day. You can use the clock to establish these times.
    
    ** Estimated "time to sleep" and estimated "total sleep time". It's important to remember that the "time to sleep" and "total sleep time" are just mental estimates of how long it took you to fall asleep at the beginning of the night and how long you think you slept for the whole night. Your impression of these times is more important than the actual times. So don't try to keep a mental clock in your head. And DO NOT use a clock to figure out these times more accurately. Ranges of times (5--10 minutes to fall asleep) are FINE.
    
    ** Estimated number of times you awoke during the night. And brief notes about what you remember about the wakings can be useful if you need to work on fixing an on-going problem. But you can and should keep the notes brief and NOT worry at all about getting the time of the awakenings right. Or the order of the awakenings correct. Things like "Woke up once with a bad leak and twice with aerophagia" is all the needed detail you need. Do NOT write anything about the night time awakenings down in the middle of the night! Just make notes on what you easily remember when you do wake up in the morning. An awakening or two in the middle of the night that you don't remember is probably not enough to be disruptive to your sleep. (One of the problems with untreated OSA, however, is that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of awakenings and arousals each night that you don't remember. And by the time you've got that many arousals and awakenings that you don't remember, it is disruptive to your sleep.)
  * Notes about how you feel when you first wake up are important. You'll know you're getting better when the magic words "refreshed" and "rested" start to appear---even if they are heavily modified by words and phrases like "sort of", "kind of", "maybe", "almost", "not quite", "more" or "less."
  
  * Write a synopsis of how you felt during the day either before going to bed for the night. Or write the synopsis of the previous day the next morning. (I find the latter easier to do.)
  
  * A list of any medication (both how much and when) you took, any alcohol consumed, and any significant departures from normal on caffeine consumption may also be useful in helping figure out whether any of these things affect your AHI or the quality of your sleep in other ways.

[boognish]

Get the software so you can see the events. While the overall AHI is acceptable if you happen to have times where the events come in groups or clusters and the other times nothing at all those times with clusters can stress the body and those will need to be broken up (if you have them) to have a better chance to get better restorative sleep.
Also, how many hours of sleep are you getting? Is it sound sleep or fragmented for some reason?
Best numbers in the world don't mean much if sleep time is fragmented or shortened.
While 1 week is really too soon to expect marked improvement it is not too soon to watch the reports for something that might need improvement on.

Get the software. You won't be sorry.

Where can a person find the software?

[Wulfman]

Get the software so you can see the events. While the overall AHI is acceptable if you happen to have times where the events come in groups or clusters and the other times nothing at all those times with clusters can stress the body and those will need to be broken up (if you have them) to have a better chance to get better restorative sleep.
Also, how many hours of sleep are you getting? Is it sound sleep or fragmented for some reason?
Best numbers in the world don't mean much if sleep time is fragmented or shortened.
While 1 week is really too soon to expect marked improvement it is not too soon to watch the reports for something that might need improvement on.

Get the software. You won't be sorry.

Where can a person find the software?

It's "everywhere". All you have to do is LOOK. Of course, it would also help if you would register as a member of the forum so people could send you Private Messages.


Den

[boognish]

Get the software so you can see the events. While the overall AHI is acceptable if you happen to have times where the events come in groups or clusters and the other times nothing at all those times with clusters can stress the body and those will need to be broken up (if you have them) to have a better chance to get better restorative sleep.
Also, how many hours of sleep are you getting? Is it sound sleep or fragmented for some reason?
Best numbers in the world don't mean much if sleep time is fragmented or shortened.
While 1 week is really too soon to expect marked improvement it is not too soon to watch the reports for something that might need improvement on.

Get the software. You won't be sorry.

Where can a person find the software?

It's "everywhere". All you have to do is LOOK. Of course, it would also help if you would register as a member of the forum so people could send you Private Messages.

Den

Done.