Question about "Flow limitation" what is it and why does it spike my pressure?

This morning I was awaken by my machine suddenly increasing pressure. I looked on the OSCAR data and it showed a "flow limitation" right about that time. No Apneas, Clear airway, or hypopnea events, just the FL or flow limitation. What is this? And why does it suddenly ramp up my pressure?


I'm using an APAP with low pressure 9.5 high pressure 12.

Can you please post the detailed software report showing this "sudden" spike in pressure?
Normally these machines don't do anything suddenly or like blink of an eye sudden. I am wondering what seems so "sudden" to you.

But why do these auto adjusting machines increase the pressure for flow limitations (they will also do it for snores)...it's because flow limitations are considered early warning signs that the airway is trying to close off and it's built into the auto adjusting algorithm to increase the pressure in an effort to prevent further collapse of the airway.
They fight more than just the OAs or hyponeas....which are what occurs when the flow limitations aren't effectively prevented.

Flow limitations, and other breathing things that disturb sleep and cause pressure to go up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gie2dhqP2c

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 24, 2019 2:13 pm

Can you please post the detailed software report showing this "sudden" spike in pressure?
Normally these machines don't do anything suddenly or like blink of an eye sudden. I am wondering what seems so "sudden" to you.

I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't have used the term "sudden". I don't know how quickly the machine changed, since I was sleeping when it changed pressure. It probably went up nice and slowly. I just know I woke up and noticed it was higher than usual, so it may have just seemed sudden to me.

Now that you mention it, there was a snore right after the flow limitation. They probably added together and that was the reason the pressure went up more than the other few flow limitations I had. Thanks for your response.