Wide variation in event numbers with CPAP

The devil lies in the details. If you go to apneaboard.com, in the black marquee near the top of the forum page, look right and find 'OSCAR'. That is a glitch-free, safe, freeware program that will read your CPAP machine's daily data and provide you, and us, with a detailed and comprehensive look at how you and your machine interact, and what events and performances you both exchange. You'll need to pull your machine's SD card out two or three times each week and have OSCAR download the latest data. From there, once you learn how to read the chart, you'll quickly see what stands improvement, whether fit of the mask and leaks, flow limits, minute vent, or just the levels needing adjustment, tidal volume, or even EPR (expiration pressure relief, which is often a contributor to centrals if they appear at the commencement of therapy).

The nightly AHI is a composite score of obstructive and central apneas, but it also includes hypopneas. Your physician may be 'fine' with numbers higher than 5, but I don't think it's fine. Remember, that's per hour...and it's only an average computed over the length of hours you slept in total. That means as many as 40 events per night, almost double that for the numbers you claim on the worst nights! What could be 'fine' for sleep as disrupted as yours seems to be?!?! It might be time to look for another sleep specialist, one who isn't content with your 'fine' numbers.

John, I believe any pre-formatted SD card of 2 gigs or more should work fine in your machine once you insert it. They're not much money at all. I started PAP therapy in late 2017 and have swapped the original SD card from that machine into its replacement as of February last year. Went from a RESMED AS10 Elite to the AS11 version, inserted the old card, and I'm up and running like before.

@walk4life My sleep medicine doc gave me a target of an AHI of 4 or less as my goal. I'm pretty close to that most of the time now over 5 years later but I still have some bad nights once in awhile. I think that there can be many different reasons for the AHI numbers to jump higher than your normal number. For me, that can be sleeping on my back too much (I'm a side sleeper mostly), nasal congestion, and possible stress or too much activity late in the day. Do you have a routine setup for your sleep schedule? Just wondering if there may be times when you can identify something that might be triggering a higher number.

You might want to scan through related discussions on CPAP numbers to see if anything rings a bell for you. Here is a link to the discussions and posts, including your discussion - https://connect.mayoclinic.org/search/discussions/?search=%20CPAP%20numbers.

The devil lies in the details. If you go to apneaboard.com, in the black marquee near the top of the forum page, look right and find 'OSCAR'. That is a glitch-free, safe, freeware program that will read your CPAP machine's daily data and provide you, and us, with a detailed and comprehensive look at how you and your machine interact, and what events and performances you both exchange. You'll need to pull your machine's SD card out two or three times each week and have OSCAR download the latest data. From there, once you learn how to read the chart, you'll quickly see what stands improvement, whether fit of the mask and leaks, flow limits, minute vent, or just the levels needing adjustment, tidal volume, or even EPR (expiration pressure relief, which is often a contributor to centrals if they appear at the commencement of therapy).

The nightly AHI is a composite score of obstructive and central apneas, but it also includes hypopneas. Your physician may be 'fine' with numbers higher than 5, but I don't think it's fine. Remember, that's per hour...and it's only an average computed over the length of hours you slept in total. That means as many as 40 events per night, almost double that for the numbers you claim on the worst nights! What could be 'fine' for sleep as disrupted as yours seems to be?!?! It might be time to look for another sleep specialist, one who isn't content with your 'fine' numbers.