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AHI lower with leaks??
Can anyone help me solve this mystery please? I take my readings every morning (Intellipap, which I learnt the other day on here isn't a great machine, but it's too late as I've bought it now LOL). Anyway, when I get recorded leaks, my AHI seems to be lower. Why is this? I'm wondering if I'm on the correct setting. Is it possible to cause more AHI's if the pressure's too high?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kath Hope www.hope2Sleep.co.uk on
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HELLO. ANYONE THERE? (lol)
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Permalink Reply by Banyon on
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Kath,
It can be a bit complicated and there is more than one possibility.
1) The difference in AHI could be normal night-to-night variation which we all have due to many factors including variation in sleep hygiene, what was eaten that day, amount of congestion, amount of exercise or lack thereof, etc. What are the typical AHIs you see and how much lower are they when leaks are present?
2) If the leak is very high, the machine cannot sense apneas so some are not counted in the data. On nights of high leak, what are some typical leak readings?
3) If a patient has a tendency to central sleep apnea, pressure too high can induce central apneas. Were any centrals observed in your sleep study?
About the only hard and fast rule about CPAP and apnea is, "There are no hard and fast rules."
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Permalink Reply by RockRpsgt on
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You might need to have your pressure re-evaluated. Sometimes high pressures can cause events. when there is a leak you do not receive the prescribed pressure which could cause a drop in your AHI. This is rare as more often a leak will cause event counts to go up. I would evaluate banyon's post before talking to your doc about mine.
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Hi Banyon and Rock, and please accept my sincere apologies for not having the time to come back to thank you for your advice. (just had a manic week).
Banyon - thankfully I had another test a month back which found no central apneas, which had been suspected. You're so right in your first point (as in what was eaten or drunk, especially for bed that day etc) so it's so hard to fathom out why our AHI varies. Fortunately I don't get many leaks, but it's been the odd nights when something goes wrong and high leaks were recorded (10-20%) and those were the times I noticed when the AHI went right down to recordings of 1-3 which is very low for me. I used to have around 6-8 AHI's, but since my turbinate op a month ago I'm down to 3.5-5 so that's an improvement which I hope will get even better with time. Anyway, anything's better than 30 apneas per hour I was diagnosed with.
Rock - that's exactly why I asked the question, as I too thought that with high leaks the AHI's would be higher. I am still working with the sleep doc in getting my pressure correct. APAP just runs away with me for some reason, and always runs at maximum all night, so I'm accepting CPAP is probably best for me.
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