Am I getting the AHI that Sleepyhead reports?

[Paul_H]

Hello:

There's a bit of a story to my query. I use a ResMed P10 nasal pillow mask. Used that for about 3½ years now. Love it, but as time has gone by I guess I've changed, as I've had to make some adjustments. I used to obsess about getting my AHI as low as possible. For a long while I was running pressure min 15 max 20, or min 12 max 18. After about a year on this mask I started to have large leaks on a regular basis: 10%, 15%+. Also dry mouth, which indicated some mouth leaking. I was loath to give up the mask, so I decided to accept a bit of a higher AHI and turn the maximum pressure down, and hope for less leaks. That worked well, my leaks are tiny now, and my AHI hardly went up. Running at min 8 max 15, average AHI last 30 days 1.02.

However, on many nights my pressure is maxing out for much of the night - please see https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0S5oqs3qDsZFn. Does this mean that my reported AHI is false? I'm 72, I feel good, I exercise most days, never feel sleepy during the day, for what that's worth. I may start to gradually increase the max and see what results I get.

Thanks for your opinion.

Paul

[prodigyplace]

We cannot see the detail on your screenshots. Please follow the screen setup and posting instructions here.

viewtopic/t158560/How-to-post-images-for-review.html

[palerider]

However, on many nights my pressure is maxing out for much of the night - please see https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0S5oqs3qDsZFn. Does this mean that my reported AHI is false?

No, it doesn't mean that your AHI is false, It just means that your AHI might be a bit better if the pressure was allowed to go up a bit.. but it's not constantly up against the max setting, so it probably wouldn't be a big change.

If your leaks were really high, then the AHI might be suspect.. but that takes well over 24lpm... and even then, until they're absurdly high, the machine can still see apneas, but it starts having trouble telling what kind of apneas they are.

You said you've had the same mask for a year, have you changed the cushion? If not, they're cheap at Amazon/ebay. (most likely).

[prodigyplace]

With the P10 you can remove the headgear from the frame. Washing it and soaking and then allowing to dry lets it shrink back.

[Paul_H]

We cannot see the detail on your screenshots. Please follow the screen setup and posting instructions here.

viewtopic/t158560/How-to-post-images-for-review.html

I'm not sure why this is happening. It's my iCloud site, and is set as "Shared." Others I've forwarded the URL to can view it easily, it opens a new tab in a web browser with large graphics. However, I'll try the approved method when I get a chance - busy for the next few days.

[Paul_H]

However, on many nights my pressure is maxing out for much of the night - please see https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0S5oqs3qDsZFn. Does this mean that my reported AHI is false?

No, it doesn't mean that your AHI is false, It just means that your AHI might be a bit better if the pressure was allowed to go up a bit.. but it's not constantly up against the max setting, so it probably wouldn't be a big change.

If your leaks were really high, then the AHI might be suspect.. but that takes well over 24lpm... and even then, until they're absurdly high, the machine can still see apneas, but it starts having trouble telling what kind of apneas they are.

You said you've had the same mask for a year, have you changed the cushion? If not, they're cheap at Amazon/ebay. (most likely).

Thanks for your reply. As my numbers are pretty good right now, I think I'll raise the high pressure a notch and see what happens. I said I'd had the same mask for 3½ years, actually. I buy new cushions every year, and the ones I'm using now have been on there for about 6 months.

[Paul_H]

With the P10 you can remove the headgear from the frame. Washing it and soaking and then allowing to dry lets it shrink back.

Thanks. I do that once a week already. I buy new headgear every year, and the one I have on the unit now is about 6 months old.

[prodigyplace]

The past couple of months, I have been alternating between 2 frames & headgear. One is over a year old with no issues. Before that, the old one was used exclusively but using 2 gives flexibility in cleaning and lets me make sure things are totally dry before reuse.

[palerider]

However, on many nights my pressure is maxing out for much of the night - please see https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0S5oqs3qDsZFn. Does this mean that my reported AHI is false?

No, it doesn't mean that your AHI is false, It just means that your AHI might be a bit better if the pressure was allowed to go up a bit.. but it's not constantly up against the max setting, so it probably wouldn't be a big change.

If your leaks were really high, then the AHI might be suspect.. but that takes well over 24lpm... and even then, until they're absurdly high, the machine can still see apneas, but it starts having trouble telling what kind of apneas they are.

You said you've had the same mask for a year, have you changed the cushion? If not, they're cheap at Amazon/ebay. (most likely).

Thanks for your reply. As my numbers are pretty good right now, I think I'll raise the high pressure a notch and see what happens. I said I'd had the same mask for 3½ years, actually. I buy new cushions every year, and the ones I'm using now have been on there for about 6 months.

I got a couple years out of my first P10 cushion, I swapped it out recently, but I think it was actually ok still, but the headband needed to be swapped.