It is obvious the manufacturers want to make their machines look good rather than help patients the most possible. Thank you for your videos. I am very glad I found your channel.
No doctor has EVER explained or even mentioned this data. Just “bring your machine in” and we will download it. I now have a Resmed which transmits data but never been told anything. So upset because other than asking for my pressure to be reduced there have never been any changes made. I have started to wonder if this is just another way for them to make money, not to really help anyone.
Just watched this last night. I opened an account at sleep hq. I started cpap in june of this year. I am still not sleeping, and it's taking a toll on my life. I was diagnosed as mild sleep apnea of 14. I have been consistently under 5 ahi, really since starting cpap. Yet i can't sleep through the night and wake up exhausted. I made some adjustments last night after watching this, and i tried using some mouth tape. It's hard because i have a goatee. But i managed to get it on, and it stayed most of the night. My ahi was 0.47 and went down .19 My leak rate was 4.8 down 3.6 My pressure is set from 7 to 11. Humidity 4 and epr on 2. I use airsense 11 and nasal pillows. It seems from the data i should be sleeping like a baby. But looking at the saw tooth breathing says a different story after rewatching this video. I will not give up! I do hope i have a breakthrough soon brefore a breakdown!
@@vibes..585 Tried mouth strap didn't work. Mouth taping helps and not dangerous. It is a light glue easily removed. My brain would wake me up if I were suffocating just like it did before I started using cpap. Thanks for your suggestion!
@vicaccino I've actually lowered it. I looked at sleep hq and oscar data and adjusted in a tight range of where the pressure is 95% of the time. Much better, but even better with mouth tape.
When it comes to your own health, you have to take control. It's ultimately up to you. Thank you for this. Doctor was saying things were fine, but I didn't feel fine at all.
@@chazzthaspazz4475 Pins and needles? Please explain cuz for like two years i experienced pins and needles in my skin mostly in the feet, legs and hands. Even in the face sometimes. Was just diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and got a cpap 1 week ago.
I was wearing a CPAP machine for 7 years without which I would have died. I started an intermittent fasting regiment along with eating no bread, rice, or sugar. I don't have to wear one anymore. Diet Diet Diet Diet and generalized inflammation!
Since I've been watching your videos, I have awoke and am being aware of much more of what is going on with my CPAP machine and myself. The doctor never told me anything. Basically he just told me I had severe apnea and let me loose. Didn't even tell me where to go to get a machine. Believe me, you have opened my eyes. I have learned so much and have so much more to learn. Thank you so much.
"Since I've been watching your videos, I have awoke and am being aware of much more of what is going on with my CPAP machine and myself." Same here. I go to see my VA doctor tomorrow and hopefully things go ok and I'll be able to get a newer ResMed CPAP. But if not, I can now maximize the usage of my current AirSense 10.
After 6 months using a machine this is what I’ve found. After countless masks and adjustments I can report that I am now sleeping far worse than I ever did before. I am just as tired as I’ve ever been. It takes me eons to fall asleep even when I’m dog tired. I feel like I’ve been sold a very expensive and worthless waste of time.
As a programmer & mathematician with experience coding signal processing algorithms, I would say it should be easy to write the code to correctly identify the hypopnea events in the examples you showed, without missing so many.
Exactly. Its not that its a human problem, its that the criteria is way too strict. Pattern recognition is within our ability to program for this kinda stuff
Hello, I’m also a programmer , Data Scientist with a Math degree. I agree , since there are degrees, Perhaps they should not be counting each breath as yes or no. They could rate them on a scale of 1-5, or 1-10, Then compute a score. But I am guessing this how they have always done it!!!
@pgerschibm precisely! I am NOT a programmer with a degree, and even I know that this can easily be done and should be flagging by category... 0-20%, 20-30%, 30-40%, 40-50%, 50+%. They only giving HALF of the data with this all or nothing approach. How UNscientific.
@@pgerschibmfor a world that now runs on data, this oversight is ridiculous. Also very disappointing is the medical community and their disinterest in digging into these issues, and educating their patients properly.
Someone should create an open source Github repo to do this. I'm going to make a note to myself to create on and I'll come back to this video to post it.
@@CPAPReviews Messed up tho, because by the CPAP reports coming out like that, it falsely shows higher effectiveness for therapy. They can then show their machines are doing a great job, when in fact, they are not.
Outstanding content! I have learned soooo much from you. Pressure adjustments, the menu behind the menu and so much more. Thank you, keep up the good work! I may be able to get used to this machine after all
Just got my machine yesterday after a 4week trial. Your vids are invaluable and in fact people at the cpap clinic said they watch your vids too! Have now signed up to sleephq and checking it out. Cheers mate
You're doing such an important job, and doing it very good. You helped me a lot in the past few weeks - before and after I started cpap therapy. Thank you so much !!!
Great video mate. As an interesting follow up I would look at a WatchPat, or other sleep study auto report. I have found that these studies over report AHI (mark each event multiple times), so that it makes you look worse than you really are. Then they get you on CPAP and give you artificially low readings.
Brother! Great to hear from you. I don't think we have the WatchPAT down under but i had a look at it. I think if i venture down the diagnostic rabbit hole i might never come back up . It's a great point you make though. So many businesses doing home sleep studies, it's really not hard to artificially report a high AHI during the study and then sell them a pap. Keep up the fantastic work with the youtube channel. Nicko
Nice to see you around Dr. Veer! Wanted to mention that I've actually been told, and experienced first-hand, WatchPAT underreporting AHI rather than overreporting. Perhaps this is due to the nature of my AHI being mainly hypopneas with microarousal but very little oxygen desaturation. My recent in-lab picked these up giving 11 AHI overall and 17 during REM, while WatchPAT AHI was around 0.
This is the best explanation of flow rate and what I need to be looking for in Oscar. It's no wonder that I'm consistently way under 5 AHI but not sleeping well every night. Thanks mate!!
I can't begin to tell you how much I've enjoyed your videos! They've Really helped me in my quest to get my AHI's within a reasonable range. I currently use a Dreamstation 2 and don't currently have any access to reports other than what is provided by Phillips. Even so, This video(Along your other videos) have been a HUGE benefit to me! THANKS !
Key point is 10:44 "So unless your airflow drops by a massive 50% for 10 seconds or more, RESMED doesn't feel there's a problem. They won't flag the events". It is very important to learn the Sleep HQ data, we need to take control of our own data cause it looks like no one else will.
Is the 50% drop in airflow for 10 seconds or more a ResMed-specific standard, or is it the general medical standard for defining hypopneas? I've seen similar criteria mentioned in various medical sources unrelated to any specific company.
I'm just starting my therapy. Going in to the unknown. Thank you very much for puting videos up on RU-vid. They are very helpful in understanding what is happening and what to expect.
Eye opening. Now it makes sense why with 99%compliance I still feel like I am exhausted. Even went to a nose Dr that gave me a surgery that opened the passage way through my nose. I feel like I breathe better but am still exhausted. Tried new bed new pillows. This is the first time hearing about the flow rate of breathing. Thank you
Tonight is my first night of my 3B cpap machine… I watched your videos part one and part two of how to set it up and I went in and changed numbers around to the numbers you suggested for beginners now I’m scared to use it… I’m thinking I probably should not have done that because maybe my doctor had it already set to a certain number..?!?!? could someone please please tell me I’m literally scared to go to sleep and use this as I said it would be my first night I just don’t want to not wake up Supposedly I have “severe” apnea that is what is marked on my papers that she sent me home with apparently I woke up 42 times in one hour
Huh. What a breath of fresh air you are. A new paradigm in my experience. Can't really say I'm dissatisfied with my Resmed and support program. Even with my collection of allergies clogging my sinus, 24/7. Loved your delivery, and the little Bean thumbnail. Don't ever change, please carry on! 😎
Thank you for you for what you're doing. I find your platform SleepHQ very informative and helpful. This video too. I was not aware that my Dreamstation keeps records of every my single breathe and could be viewed as timeline graphic. Really nice job! I firstly tried a china cpap machine Reswell which reported AHI about 15 or so, while Philips Dreamstation reports always below 5. Now I have a logical explanation of this discrepancy.
Thank you for telling me about OSCAR. I have download OSCAR to my computer and it works fantastic. I use a ResMed S9 ACS-A Pacewave and my AHI 7 day average is 0,15. I use the machine 8 hours a night. I am 74 Years old and I am a CPAP user since 2005. Starting with ResMed S8. I got the S9 ACS-A cheap a Year ago and it is 100 times better than the regular S9 CPAP I used before.
I really love your videos and their informational quality. I purchased my BiPAP machine (went online and got it in less than a week because the DME said it would take them at least 4 months), and I'm getting AHIs and CAIs in the 40s (I'm getting used to the high pressure settings with the lower ones I put in. Thank you by the way, the first night felt like my lungs had been put through the ringer with high settings, and your tips are allowing me to build up to my correct settings). Frequently when I'm reaching early stages of sleep I can actually tell that I'm having an event as my body isn't getting the reminder to breath. I check my machine by stopping it and looking at the reports and it picked up an event.
Great information. One recommendation may be to change away from the pillows. I used pillows for years and determined that I had trouble exhaling and sometimes inhaling
I used pillows because I have sinus and congestion issues esp when I sleep. I thought it was getting the air in me the best. I wake up though with a heavy chest. Could that be why... I'm struggling too hard? My o2 ring shows my oxygen is good though..always within the range..90s
Awesome mate, yeah absolutely! Certainly lots of cpap users on the platform checkout their therapy performance. Should also see lots of cool new features in the near future. Cheers bro. Nicko
Thank you Nicko! You opened my eyes!!! I didn't know that was possible for me to monitor and evaluate the quality of my sleep. Indeed I think that having this opportunity will my sleep get better!
I love your content. Taught me more then my "doc" i'm switching because of this. Mine is complex. I have asthma. But i'm 100 percent adherence. AHI says 0 the report shows the hypnea's . Increase pressure in increments to get my overall well being and sleep good. I'm doing good. but i also noticed my o2 would go down to 88 sometimes. Keep up the good work. i'm only 39 years old. i have a long time to go. i'm now off of blood pressure meds and depression meds for 3 months. My asthma was worse for over a year after covid. Any data out there to see if Covid caused worse sleep apnea after disease? I noticed my wife's apnea has gotten worse.
Wow thank you so much Nick Thank you for the info and Help. Your a great help to us all. I'll set my Cpap to 13 and see how we go. Sleep Doc tomorrow, Interesting to see what he has to say.
@@CPAPReviews Had a bad eye leak (as in just my right eye)last night for the first time, kept waking me up. drop down to 12.6 see how I go tonight. Thank you for all your help I can not say this enough times
Now I want to watch the Matrix series again. LOL. But thank you for the great videos. Looking at the larger range of data in SleepHQ is awesome and your videos explaining how to look at different things within your data and small recommendations that can help correct and improve the limitations inherent to the CPAP machines is really helping me get my machine set back up after it's settings reverting back to default since it's been unplugged and not used for an extended time and I rolled off of being eligible for support from the sleep clinic and have to go back thru my normal doc if I want to go beyond monitoring it myself or for new sleep study. Looking at the AHI index my changes had been looking very good. After watching a few more vids and looking closer at other areas of the data I have more work to do. Thank You so much for sharing your knowledge and making these videos.
So this again goes to what you said in one of your previous videos, besides what the machine is telling you, you can go by how you feeling. If still feeling tired, add an 1 additional pressure and see how you feel. Thanks Nick for your help, you rock.
Very informative, thank you! I started my therapy just a couple of weeks ago. I was so excited that my ResMed myAir app showed I was consistently below 5. Now I'm skeptical because I'm still very tired sometimes during the day. But I know that I'm still adjusting to therapy and am probably not sleeping deeply.. I'm so glad I found this, as I'm always very proactive in my medical treatments and have learned the hard way not to completely trust Drs without question. Where can I get this O2 ring everyone is talking about?
I'm a rpsgt and I really appreciate this video. My hubby is still exhausted after 5 yrs on cpap. I will check his data. I recently got dx'd with osa and I will start checking mine, too.
Thanks for the great videos. I’ve been in sleep medicine for about 13yrs and did my Masters in Sydney. I have mostly been scoring but have started back in CPAP consulting so finding your videos great. I did use ASV years ago for centrals but managed to treats the underlying cause but know how important patient based feedback info is. If there is anyway I can help contribute or learn from you I would love to help and learn. I’m RPSGT (used to also be RST) and ANZSSA member. Keep up the great work!
try.sleephq.com/ is my online cpap support community & cpap reporting platform. Master your therapy and improve your sleep with our powerful cloud-based platform. Create a FREE account and download your detailed therapy report today! Features Include - 1. High-resolution 'breath-by-breath' analysis - View every apnea and every breath in full detail. 2. Sleep Journal - Track how changes to device settings influence your sleep & therapy results. 3. Custom PDF reports - Detailed therapy reports complete with journal entries. 4. Therapy Trends - Monitor changes to your apnea control over time. 5. Support - Access to the SleepHQ Community Forum 6. Education - From CPAP novice to therapy PRO. Master your device and settings with the SleepHQ Academy course 7. Blood Oxygen, Heart Rate & Movement Data - Connect a SleepHQ O2 Ring to your account to view additional data sources and take your therapy to the next level. 8. Access to exclusive, member-only discounts on the latest and greatest CPAP gear And much more! SleepHQ O2 Ring - www.sleephq.com/o2-ring/ SleepHQ Magic Uploader - www.sleephq.com/magic-uploader/ Join My Facebook Community - cpap.review/facebook My Monthly Newsletter - cpap.review/newsletter Thanks for all the love & support! Uncle Nicko
I just signed up for a SleepHQ account have yet to upload any data yet. I have been using a CPAP machine for 15 years and am now very curious as to how my flow rates look. Thanks for the tutorial. Cheers.
As always Nick. Great video's with Great advise for us all. Thank you for keeping us all informed. Hopefully you will have some BMC machines on the the Sleep HQ site in the near future.
@@CPAPReviews Thanks again Nick. Good to hear as my BMC Luna hardly ever registers any AHI events. Will be great to be able to see if results are accurate or not.
I am using APAP for 1 week. Autoset 11 resmed. In basic terms it has resolved my issues but I feel there is fair bit of potential still in improving comfort and performance which requires patience and tuning. I am engineer electrical so highly analytical and such detailed reports would be perfect for me to tune myself to perfection. But Resmed is currently on hire and for some reason office calls me. Which is great but it does not allow me to tune it myself. So the question is which company/brand provides best machine software to analyse yourself and customer service ? I hardly ever have central appnea (almost 0-0.5), total blockages are happening but not for long but reduced flow is like 80% of time. Machine is set to standard, 5-20, mostly machine pressure ends up at 12.8 pressure, leak is 1L/min, AHI 4.7, constructive 3.7, total ai 4.3
OMG! THIS IS IT! I´ve been using my CPAP for a month (Resmed S10) now and i am still so tired feeling like bull**** (not as like when i was not using my CPAP). My doctor changed the pressure many times in this month, from 14 to 12, then to 11 and back to 14 because my AHI goes from 1-2 to 30 depending on the day. 14 is the spot where i maintain the AIH below 5 ALWAYS, but i can´t sleep well because i have only a couple of hours of it thanks to the uncomfotrtness i feel when i wake up wearing my mask and feeling like i am chocking. I´ve been on licence for 2 months now and the doctor said i will be able to get back to work asap because the therapy is going well in general and the only thing that left is me to get used to it.... I´m still feeling pretty bad :/
That's a tricky one mate. When you're just starting out i recommend you focus more on comfort and compliance. Just try and get to a point where you're using it 4+ hours a night. After a couple of months, your breathing will adapt to the pressure and then you can shift your focus to better apnea control. Good luck!
Great video and explanation! Any chance that SleepHQ will use AI in the near future to analyse and set the real flags so we will get a more reliable AHI calculated. Would be great to bypass the crappy flags and AHI calculations from Resmed.
Thanks, had a dream station (DS), now resmed, after the motor foam problem. Set pressures, started on nine, AHI around 6, up to ten, AHI .09-1.5 mostly. Last test Doc recommended drop to seven. Three days of C Crap, so I'll take it back up. One thing I did like about the DS, break apart for short term travel.
Have you thought about adding these events as a separate metric to SleepHQ? ie. we could see AHI as reported by the machine and another AHI+ metric with the less conservative events. It should be doable algorithmically
I went for a compliance visit just a few weeks ago and pointed out that I knew from looking at my own data that I was having more events than stated. Some are 5-8 seconds long others much more but I take a small breath or two in the middle so it doesn't count. The doc only recommended stimulants to stay awake during the day. I said no thanks and that I would continue to monitor my sleep myself. If they were interested I could invite them to look at the same data I am. Although they looked at me like I was a freak for knowing what OSCAR was and had no clue about SleepHQ.
They tried to push stimulants on me as well. This video has given me some hope. I gotta get an o2 ring and start figuring this out myself. Good luck to you Tara sounds like we're in a similar boat
@@tarasnow-burch7203 it's been about 3 years for me. I feel better than I used to but getting through the day is still really hard. I never actually feel fully rested. My o2 sensor will be here tomorrow
Thank you for such an informative video! I have learned more from your videos online than I have from my present and past sleep doctors. Quick question...how commonplace is it in the CPAP world that supplemental oxygen at night is added in addition to using your CPAP...when you are continually waking up not being able to breathe on the machine? Would this be mainly because your CPAP pressure is incorrectly set by the professionals? After listening to this video of yours, I find myself questioning the use of nighttime oxygen vs. tinkering with the pressure to fine-tune it. Any thoughts on pressure vs. supplemental oxygen? Thanks so much!
Great video, very helpful, wasn't really sure how to read that data. I'm using Oscar but SleepHQ looks less messy so I'll check it out. Just had a look at my flow rate. I don't think I'm missing to many apnea events but there are places were my it looks like I'm approaching an apnea event but then recovers. Doesn't go down to the zero line but gets closer. In the past I've used my oximeter and lined up the graph with the data in Oscar and never had to many worries with low oxygen outside of the marked apnea events. But I'm gonna compared the two data sets again for a few nights with this new insight you've given us.
@@CPAPReviews Thanks - looking forward to when you have time to do the review. I am about to Hire one & the Sleep Scientist at the Clinic says these are a higher quality machine, even having some Metal framing instead of all plastic, like other devices
I am super impressed with your videos, so helpful, so much significant information presented in such an easy way to understand. I'd love your comments on this situation. I bought a good quality smart watch (Garmin, over $400) to monitor vital stats since I have health problems ... got it before I started the CPAP therapy. The watch gives info on sleep including a general "rating"; I consistently was in the 30's and 40's (rated poor) when it should be in the 90's. Par for the course since I had 25 events per hour in my sleep study. Although my ResMed stats are much better (2.7 last night), my Garmin watch ratings are still "poor" every night. I've been thinking that they must be off since I started the CPAP, but now you've given me another vantage point ... maybe the watch is correct and my ResMed data is off, not reporting numerous events. Hmmm ... what do you think?
incredibly timely video. was having some really rough days with fatigue this week. put the data from the airsense 10 into sleephq and it looks like theres alot of events that arent flagged. might bump the pressure up a little and see how i go. the tight range auto setting idea is a good one too.
Grate video, recently I had some problems with my therapy. as i lost weight i slowly dropped my pressures to stop some bad side effects i.e. wanting to throw up some mornings ect with a API of about 1.5. It was going grate until I got COVID. my API was still low at 7 but this video makes a lot more sense to me on why
Your page here has been a real 'eye-opener'. I have been on a (res-med - air sense 10) C pap for 30 years. I had severe sleep apnea until I started using the c pap machine and I do feel somewhat better but still tired in the morning ( more so lately). Should I go to my sleep doctor for an updated sleep test (which now I didn't trust) or just bump up my c pap machine a point or two or more? and see what happens. I'm kind of afraid to self-diagnose but if the tests aren't correct, not sure which way to go now. Thanks for the great info. I really appreciate it.
Thank you my friend. Glad you enjoyed it. Yes that's certainly a difficult decision and one i can't help you with unforunately. I certainly know what i would do. Here's another video however that might influence your decision making - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xfeYfoy-BS8.html Good luck brother
Wow. I’m barely 3 weeks into my therapy and my Resmed 11 is telling me I’m consistently having AHI of less than 1 while my pre-therapy score was 53. I still feel like crap and now I’m totally skeptical!!!
G'day brother. Well now you know how to validate your AHI . For many, the ahi number provided will be an accurate representation of their breathing quality however for many it will be way off. For those still feeling tired, it's worth doing a thorough check once in while just to see what your breathing quality is like. All the best mate
Plus, you haven't gotten used to it yet and may not be sleeping much. If you're not sleeping, then you're not snoring. Still doesn't make you feel any better though.
It takes a while for your sleep to resume the flow of sleep architecture that you have not had due to apnea interruption. Getting apnea treated is not just solely for helping you feel better, it is to increase your quality of life by regulating your sleep, which in turn, decreases all of the apnea risk factors.
As a Lowenstein CPAP user so curious to know how this data analysis works out. But the Lowenstein Prisma data cant be read by Oscar and SleepHQ. Currently there is a way to read the datacard by the companies own (cloud) software to analyse it (but it reaches by far not to the level that you show in your video). Any suggestions?
I take zero notice of the AHI generated by the machine but as you suggested here Nicko I use the O2 ring data as the ultimate evidence of adequate therapy.
Are the manufacturers still using different criteria? Have you posted an updated video on this topic? What’s the point of collecting the data if the patient can’t rely on the data being accurately reported.
Makes sense. My dream station is set at 10 but it will drop some times and raise no higher than a 10 other times. Sometimes I am tired and other times I am ok. I am a back and side sleeper, no perminate position
Awesome video,any chance you can do a video on how to go to the sleep hq site and drag files and and what files do drag and how ,im not so great with the phone
Hi Nick, great video, scary to think its underestimating it. I hope they updated their software. I’m trying to understand my own flow rate. Can you narrow the data range from -150/+150 on the graph so it’s easier to read?
Thank you for this informational video. SUPER! That is of great help for me, a "non-medical" user, fond of Oscar to give me at least the additional information for the non-information of the Resmed/Dreamstation output. I wonder, will there ever be an Oscar iPad version, using the data available on iCloud?
Hi Greetings from ireland.. great video thanks ..My therapist /Resmed & Doc are all very happy with my results. My score is never above 1..and is always 0.0....or 0.4/6 ect... But every morning I wake up and feel like death warmed up..i feel ok during the day ..but never wake up feeling good...its a horrible start to the days...any idea why this happens..?.. Thanks for your help 👍
I would have thought the manufacturers would have exaggerated the number of AHIs being recorded to foster a sense of dependence upon the product. But is it likely a reason to undercount incidents around the machines capacity to function effectively enough? Five is the golden number to be below and as long as the machine is recording the majority of users below five then the punters are happy and so is the company's sales figures.
This is a particularly good discussion for me. This morning was a good example of what I face in my own therapy: I think I would benefit from a higher upper pressure limit but the mask fit will not hold it. This morning, I was awakened by my mask leaking - the pressure was blowing past my seal and it would only hold if I got the mask EXACTLY square on my face. This has been true for a long time and what I have had to do is set the upper limit down to stop the problem. Fortunately, I had enough quality sleep last night that I am OK for the day but you really piqued my interest when you talked about using therapy, thinking everything is OK but still feeling draggy during the day. That is, I have good days and bad days without an apparent cause. I use a Resmed Airsense 10, Vitera full mask. I wish someone made a mask that really sealed well for my face contours but I fear there is not. Have used the Resmed Quattro, too. Same issues. I am going to pay more attention to my settings and see if I can adjust around this a little more. Anyone w/ suggestions?
