Results

[AceDiplomats]

I just wanted to ask if any of you can help me understand fully my results. I took a home test which I sleeped much more for which showed 3.5 AHI of apneas but only later into the night for some reason. I'm a teen so anything over 1 is seen as abnormal, so I was referred to an in lab study in which I slept much less for but still had a lot of "spontaneous arousals" but showed only 1 apnea in the short time I slept for. I showed only 10% REM and the arousals seemed to kick me back to an earlier stage of sleep each time in the in lab study. I am just confused and would appreciate any insight no matter how small. I only recieved a call from the sleep lab that said "Hi, you don't have sleep apnea! Bye now!" and I'm just wondering if maybe there's more to the data than I can realize. Again thanks! (the second is the home test in which I slept longer for btw).

https://imgur.com/a/A13RSfU

[Snoregone Conclusion]

Ask your doctor(s) about UARS, ask what your RDI is.

[LSAT]

In diagnosing Sleep Apnea with sleep studies, any AHI under 5 is considered normal and is not treated. AHI 5-14 is considered mild ...15-29 moderate and 30 or greater severe.

[Julie]

Why were you tested initially? What symptoms do/did you have? Were you checked for other possible health problems (possibly even depression) with labs, etc. or not?

[AceDiplomats]

Why were you tested initially? What symptoms do/did you have? Were you checked for other possible health problems (possibly even depression) with labs, etc. or not?

Brain Fog, Memory issues, Constant headaches especially when I first wake up, always being tired, dry mouth and sore throat often, just overall feeling like I'm always half asleep and not fully aware. Teeth grinding in sleep and I often wake up randomly not knowing why.

[Julie]

By law you have a right to your report (the full one, not just the summary) so get it from your doc (not the tech) and give us a chance to see what's what (and possibly interpret it more meaningfully than you can (yet). Stay in this thread plse. You do sound like you had relevant symptoms, but we need to know more now.

[AceDiplomats]

By law you have a right to your report (the full one, not just the summary) so get it from your doc (not the tech) and give us a chance to see what's what (and possibly interpret it more meaningfully than you can (yet). Stay in this thread plse. You do sound like you had relevant symptoms, but we need to know more now.

I definitely will, my folllow up is in 10 days on the 31st. I'd love the help with interpretation more than anything. I just want to feel better and like how I felt before and I hope this study and what its shown is step one in that direction. You have no idea how much you and you guys' help is appreciated.

[zoocrewphoto]

Welcome to the group.

I would make a list of questions to take with you to the followup. You were told no apnea, but it really sounds like inconclusive results. You didn't sleep very long, and you didn't spend much time in REM. A lot of people are worse in REM and/on their back. So, the test really didn't test your full sleeping situation.

I would be asking how accurate a result can be if not testing you long enough, in REM, and possibly on your back.
I would want to know what the oxygen saturation levels were, and if the few events were long or clustered together.

Somebody mentioned UARS. Also good to ask about.

Since you have many of them symtoms of sleep apnea, I would ask if they would at least do a trial with cpap to see if you feel better with treatment. Some people who are diagnosed as mild or even not at all, still get improvement with cpap. Sometimes, the way to test for something is to see if the treatment works.

Also, do you have any of the classic physical traits? Small chin, narrow airway, crowded teeth, scalloped tongue? If you do, then you are likely to develop sleep apnea. Since you are showingsymtoms and likely to develop it, then you might as well try the cpap.

If they refuse to prescribe it, or insurance refuses; you can still try it on your own. There are places to buy new or lightly used machines. Craigslist is also an option. I got my backup that way. If you go that route, let us help you choose an appropriate machine so that you get a good machine. It is also possible that your parents have friends withsleep apnea, and one might have a spare machine you can try out.

[AceDiplomats]

Welcome to the group.

I would make a list of questions to take with you to the followup. You were told no apnea, but it really sounds like inconclusive results. You didn't sleep very long, and you didn't spend much time in REM. A lot of people are worse in REM and/on their back. So, the test really didn't test your full sleeping situation.

I would be asking how accurate a result can be if not testing you long enough, in REM, and possibly on your back.
I would want to know what the oxygen saturation levels were, and if the few events were long or clustered together.

Somebody mentioned UARS. Also good to ask about.

Since you have many of them symtoms of sleep apnea, I would ask if they would at least do a trial with cpap to see if you feel better with treatment. Some people who are diagnosed as mild or even not at all, still get improvement with cpap. Sometimes, the way to test for something is to see if the treatment works.

Also, do you have any of the classic physical traits? Small chin, narrow airway, crowded teeth, scalloped tongue? If you do, then you are likely to develop sleep apnea. Since you are showingsymtoms and likely to develop it, then you might as well try the cpap.

If they refuse to prescribe it, or insurance refuses; you can still try it on your own. There are places to buy new or lightly used machines. Craigslist is also an option. I got my backup that way. If you go that route, let us help you choose an appropriate machine so that you get a good machine. It is also possible that your parents have friends withsleep apnea, and one might have a spare machine you can try out.

Thank you so much for this response, I'm definitely going to take all of these things into account in preparing for the follow up. And yea, I found it strange how I only got 20 minutes of REM when apparently I should've got much more. I'm kind of questioning the integrity of the report as well, well not really the results as I know the labs are super technical and in depth, but the way it was interpreted by whoevers job it is to make the final summary. The written summary claims I had great 02 saturation with only a brief dip into the 90s, but when I look at the raw data/graph, my oxygen dipped a hell of a lot of times and there's even a huge dip into the low 80s almost 70s range (I don't know how bad that is relative to others). And even in that small amount of time that I slept I woke up 17 times, once in that tiny frame of time I spent REM in. And apparently the CO2 monitor stopped working for a good 30 minutes of the study time. I hope to get some kind of help from the follow up but if it goes south or takes so long I'll definitely consider trying to get a CPAP just to see and I'll definitely ask the forum for advice if I go that route. I definitely have a smaller pointier chin and am pretty slim. I don't snore too much but I've been told I grind my teeth so much that you can sometimes see me doing it in my sleep so maybe that's the overcrowding thing, I'm not sure. And thanks for welcoming me to the group!

[AceDiplomats]

Ask your doctor(s) about UARS, ask what your RDI is.

Got it, I'll bring it up

[Pugsy]

Per your request to review your post. I assume you meant this one.
First of all I can't read the image of your sleep study....to dark and sideways and I am not sure it would help much anyway.
Second of all...read this for help in understanding what all the various terms and numbers mean. RobySue explains it so much better than I can.
http://adventures-in-hosehead-land.blog ... -test.html

Don't ask me if I think you have UARS because I have no idea and there's nothing here that really can tell us.
Mostly UARS is a rule out everything else and then they say "maybe UARS". There is actually a test for UARS specifically but it involves another sleep study with a special device called a Pes device that measures resistance in the airway. Not done commonly and not done in all labs and doctors don't always go in that direction when someone comes up with a non OSA diagnosis like you did.
http://www.sleepmedicinecenters.com/Sle ... ceSyndrome

There are many, many various sleep disordered breathing disorders besides OSA or UARS.
So you don't have OSA...doesn't mean you don't have something else going on but it does mean a lot more detective work is going to be involved trying to figure out just what might be going on and then how to fix it. Before you can fix a problem you have to identify the problem.

[AceDiplomats]

Per your request to review your post. I assume you meant this one.
First of all I can't read the image of your sleep study....to dark and sideways and I am not sure it would help much anyway.
Second of all...read this for help in understanding what all the various terms and numbers mean. RobySue explains it so much better than I can.
http://adventures-in-hosehead-land.blog ... -test.html

Don't ask me if I think you have UARS because I have no idea and there's nothing here that really can tell us.
Mostly UARS is a rule out everything else and then they say "maybe UARS". There is actually a test for UARS specifically but it involves another sleep study with a special device called a Pes device that measures resistance in the airway. Not done commonly and not done in all labs and doctors don't always go in that direction when someone comes up with a non OSA diagnosis like you did.
http://www.sleepmedicinecenters.com/Sle ... ceSyndrome

There are many, many various sleep disordered breathing disorders besides OSA or UARS.
So you don't have OSA...doesn't mean you don't have something else going on but it does mean a lot more detective work is going to be involved trying to figure out just what might be going on and then how to fix it. Before you can fix a problem you have to identify the problem.

Thanks for the response, I'll definitely read up on the links you added.

[AceDiplomats]

I think I want to attempt to treat myself. With varying results from different tests and such long waits from doctors who don't seem to take this stuff seriously, I just want to try and see if by chance, CPAP can help. I can share any information needed for you guys to help me find where, how, and which machine to get. My budget is kind of low hut I think I can spend a highest of 500. Again thanks for everything, I'm just so tired of feeling like utter shit all day everyday and want to see if I can try and at least see if this is a solution.

[Julie]

I think it would be smart to at least wait (I know it's hard) til you see the MD and let us know (if you choose of course) what he says. Then we'll have more to go on - even if it's dumb - to advise you on... you don't want to spend your money on the wrong machine, etc.

[Snoregone Conclusion]

I have to agree with Julie on this one: my results weren’t what I expected, nor my doctor (regular one) but it does factor in.

In my case, I don’t qualify as having OSA because AHI is so low, but RDI with the other symptoms qualified for coverage: still not 100% certain this machine can get me to sleep through the night, but if not, because I’m doing it through insurance rules (requires rental) if this machine falls short, nothing really lost, return this and get a different machine with knowledge of “Well, we know THAT doesn’t work, NEXT!”

Even though I haven’t been able to sleep much more than a single sleep cycle without waking up fully, it’s clearly been helping my health and how I feel. It would have been extremely unpleasant had I gotten one used and found it didn’t work for my situation and I need to spend more while now having an extra machine around that doesn’t help.

Admittedly, I don’t have nearly that tight of a budget, thankfully, which is a darn good thing, because masks eat that up quickly by themselves, and those are higher risk of not working and needing to try several: since it’s hard to buy them without a prescription where you also would be able to return them, you might eat up over $500 without finding a working mask through channels that don’t require a prescription first. If you can’t get a good enough seal on a mask, the machine doesn’t matter, it’s just become an expensive duster.