Does your AHI make a difference in how you feel ?

For those of you with a CPAP unit which determines your AHI, do you actually feel a difference during the day when your AHI is zero vs. 1 vs. 2 vs. 3 vs. 4 vs 5 or greater ?

Do you feel differently if you've had AHI =0 versus AHI = 1 ?

How much of it is psychological ?

Physician wrote:For those of you with a CPAP unit which determines your AHI, do you actually feel a difference during the day when your AHI is zero vs. 1 vs. 2 vs. 3 vs. 4 vs 5 or greater ?

Anything above 2.5 - 3 on my PB420E was bad. 1.5 was very good.

On the Resmed, an AHI of 7 with an AI of 0.5 is great -- though it rearly happens.

Do you feel differently if you've had AHI =0 versus AHI = 1 ?

Haven't experienced enough of those to say.

[qoute]How much of it is psychological ?[/quote]
Meaning?

I never tried a "guess vs. real" tabulation. I had no preconceptions to start with, and I simply discovered the difference as I went along.

My AHI usually bounces between ~5 and ~1. It doesn't really affect how I feel during the day, though. Hope this helps, if nothing else it's another data point.

With the S9, anything over 3 tends to leave me groggy all day even after eight hours sleep. I can closely predict the AHI readout by how I feel in the morning.

Physician wrote:For those of you with a CPAP unit which determines your AHI, do you actually feel a difference during the day when your AHI is zero vs. 1 vs. 2 vs. 3 vs. 4 vs 5 or greater ?

Do you feel differently if you've had AHI =0 versus AHI = 1 ?

How much of it is psychological ?

Anything over a 3 and I can really feel it. I also can look at the bags and colors under my eyes and tell you with approximation what my AHI was, I'm not wrong often.

I have yet to have a 0, but only a couple of days around a 1 (great days physically). I'm still bouncing between upper 1s and low 5s, and I'm getting tired of the inconsistency.

I find that it's the opposite: When I have a bad day I'm clamoring to find out my AHI, to confirm that it was bad (usually).

My AHI hovers in the .3-.7 range. If it jumps above about 1.5 (usually due to leaks) I WILL feel it the next day. Is that psychological? Who knows? But it IS "real', so what difference does it make?

Physician wrote:For those of you with a CPAP unit which determines your AHI, do you actually feel a difference during the day when your AHI is zero vs. 1 vs. 2 vs. 3 vs. 4 vs 5 or greater ?

Do you feel differently if you've had AHI =0 versus AHI = 1 ?

How much of it is psychological ?

I've never been at either AHI=0 or AHI=1. I am usually between 4 and 9. I can't tell that I feel different, but I'm also suspicious that my problem is not sensitive to AHI in that range.

My AHI (using Respironics machines) is usually 0.1 to 2.0. I've had zero AHI and an AHI as much as 4.0 on rare occasions. I feel equally rested in the morning and throughout the day/evening with any of those AHIs.

My AHI (using ResMed S8 machines) is usually 3.0 to 7.0, with the bulk of the AHI being made up of "hypopneas." If I look at just the AI (apnea index) when using a ResMed S8, the AI is generally zero to 1.whatever. I feel equally rested in the morning and throughout the day/evening with any ResMed S8 AHI that has a very low AI (apnea index) even if the HI (hypopnea index) is as much as 7.0.

Quite a bit of variation in the AHI within either brand of machine doesn't seem to change how I feel the next day. Fortunately always very well rested.

Newbie here.....what does AHI stand for? How do I find out what mine is?

My AHI for the last three nights were 2.1, 2.9, 1.7 and I could not feel any difference. Anything over 5 I can tell.

granny wrote:Newbie here.....what does AHI stand for? How do I find out what mine is?

Apnea/Hypopnea Index. When using CPAP, the AHI gives an average per hour of how many apneas and/or hypopneas sneaked through despite treatment.

The number of apneas and the number of hypopneas that happened are added together. That total is divided by the number of hours you slept. The result is the "AHI" -- averaged per hour. Actually the apneas and/or hypopneas could have all been happening in just a one hour period during 7 or 8 hours of sleep, but the AHI is presented as an average number per hour. An average per hour, even if there were some (or many) hours when no apneas or hypopneas were occurring.

Got a copy of your sleep study?

When the sleep tech was just gathering data on you (you weren't wearing a mask) the resulting AHI is an indication of how bad your sleep apnea problem is.

AHI (sometimes reported in a sleep study as the RDI - respiratory disturbance index) general rule of thumb:

0-4.9 -- "normal" (not diagnosed as sleep apnea)

5 - 14.9 -- "mild" sleep apnea

15 - 29.9 -- "moderate" sleep apnea

30 and above -- "severe" sleep apnea

When they put a mask on you during a sleep study, and start applying CPAP pressure, they are "titrating" the pressure -- slowly raising the pressure until they find the lowest pressure that can keep your airway open during sleep. The sleep tech's aim is to find the lowest pressure that can keep you from having apneas, hypopneas, flow limitations (some restriction in getting "enough" air, but not as bad as a hypopnea) and snores.

The AHI from a successful sleep study titration should be under 5.0 and should be especially looked for when you are sleeping on your back ("supine") and are in REM sleep ("rapid eye movement" -- dreaming). The closer to zero the AHI is for the titration pressure, the better.

Got a machine that provides AHI data in the little display window on the machine?

That will let you see, right there on the machine, what your AHI is during treatment at home. Gives you an idea of whether too many "events" (apneas and/or hypopneas) are sneaking through despite treatment.

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How to figure the AHI (Apnea/Hypopnea Index.)
Add together your apneas and hypopneas. Ignore the snores, flow limitations. Just add the apneas and hypopneas together. Divide that number by the total number of hours you slept.

Example:

3 apneas, 7 hypopneas = 10
Slept 6 hours (divide 10 by 6) = 1.6

The AHI for that night is 1.6

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Derek explains how to figure AHI when I unabashedly expose my poor (almost nonexistent!) understanding of math:
viewtopic.php?p=9427

Derek kindly wrote:
Hey Rested One,
If you have a calculator, divide the number of minutes by 60 to give you the fraction of an hour, Using the example of 38 minutes -
38/60 = 0.633
so that if you slept for 7 hours 38 minutes that's 7.633 hours.

granny wrote:Newbie here.....what does AHI stand for? How do I find out what mine is?

The definitions are easily found with the forum Search function or search engines like Google.
They're also listed in the CPAP Wiki (yellow light bulb icon above).

wiki/index.php/Category:CPAP_Definitions


Den

granny wrote:Newbie here.....what does AHI stand for? How do I find out what mine is?

Granny,

It stands for Apnea-Hypopnea Index. Basically, it is the average number of events that you have per hour. Events can be obsturctive apnea events, hypoapnea events, central apnea events, and flow limitations. Different machines and different text books define it slightly differently or include different things in the index. Basically, you get an event scored every time you stop breathing for 10 seconds or more. You want an AHI below 5 to be considered to have successful treatment, but in general, the closer to zero the better. Without using my machine, my index was over 100 per hour. Eeek, it is a wonder that lived through that.

Your machine might give you an AHI number. That might be a daily number or a long term average. Many machines download your data to a smart card, which you can download into a computer and view using software available for each different type of machine. You need a type of machine that is "fully data capable" to do that. Note that a machine with a smart card isn't always fully data capable, so you have to check the on-line information available here to know for sure.

-john-

Physician wrote:For those of you with a CPAP unit which determines your AHI, do you actually feel a difference during the day when your AHI is zero vs. 1 vs. 2 vs. 3 vs. 4 vs 5 or greater ?

Do you feel differently if you've had AHI =0 versus AHI = 1 ?

How much of it is psychological ?

I haven't had a night with an AHI over 3.0 since June of 2005. Since then, only a handful of nights over 2.0.

What makes a difference to me is the AMOUNT of sleep I get, rather than the AHI. Lower is usually better, but AHI doesn't give the full picture.


Den

I assess how I feel first so I'm not englamoured by the numbers..however, logging the numbers (& congestion & comments) I do see a definite difference between my averages before I messed up my shoulders. Since I had to start sleeping on my back, my average AHI went from 1.3 to 4+ and AI went from 0.1 to as high as 2.3. As a result, I feel tired most of the time, have low energy, am moody, with distinct signs of my old nemesis hyper-irritability. I am starting to be able to sleep for a few hrs on the first (frozen) shoulder; the other is still waay too painful for side-sleeping. I am slowly improving.