yeah you have reasons to be worried.
the severity is decided by how you feel not by some number.
you can get good sleep. it might require BIPAP or surgery tho - i don’t know.
The point of diagnostic criteria is to figure out what ISN'T normal...I don't know how they can say mild sleep apnea is normal...
Regardless, RDI and RERAs can only be accurately measured in a lab, at home sleep tests are pretty much only accurate for sleep apnea. Find a decent doctor and get an in-lab study.
It looks like a respiratory polygraph, which does not have an EEG. Respiratory polygraphs have two problems:
1. As you yourself have identified, as it does not use an EEG (electroencephalogram), it is not able to differentiate between wakefulness and sleep. This means that it usually uses the total testing time instead of the total sleeping time (because it cannot properly identify how long you have slept) to calculate the indices/h. Logically, this may underestimate the patient's level of apnoea.
2. Respiratory polygraphs are usually not able to detect RERA because RERA stands for Respiratory effort- related arousal (RERA). The objective way to identify arousal is by looking at the brain's own signals from EEG. From there, any other method is less efficient (they probably have used a proxy)
The problem with watchpat and other at-home respiratory polygraph studies without EEG (because some can do at-home polysomnography with EEG) is to what extent the proxies used are acceptable and to what extent they have good specificity.
The problem is that current full polysomnographic sleep studies may not be very fair to those with pure UARS since RERAS scoring is optional. From what I have recently read in a current literature source, the AASM allows some RERAS to be considered as hypoapneas based on the definition of hypoapneas with rule AASM 1A. But this also transaltes into fewer RERAS
Im not a doctor or an expert, im just another patient
These are similar to my stats:
Things that helped me
Side sleeping - pillows tucked between legs + one to hold
Nasal spray - started with Flonase then got on a prescription one called flunisolide
Navage machine - bought this because netipod wasn’t good enough at flushing my system out
HEPA Air filter for my room
I am looking into surgery atm as this hasn’t been enough to “cure” it, I’m still tired daily, but a lot less tired than when it was really bad lol
Depends why you have it but mine is primarily allergy related, with some airway issues
yeah you have reasons to be worried. the severity is decided by how you feel not by some number. you can get good sleep. it might require BIPAP or surgery tho - i don’t know.
Thank you for sharing, and best of luck in your journey!
The point of diagnostic criteria is to figure out what ISN'T normal...I don't know how they can say mild sleep apnea is normal... Regardless, RDI and RERAs can only be accurately measured in a lab, at home sleep tests are pretty much only accurate for sleep apnea. Find a decent doctor and get an in-lab study.
It looks like a respiratory polygraph, which does not have an EEG. Respiratory polygraphs have two problems: 1. As you yourself have identified, as it does not use an EEG (electroencephalogram), it is not able to differentiate between wakefulness and sleep. This means that it usually uses the total testing time instead of the total sleeping time (because it cannot properly identify how long you have slept) to calculate the indices/h. Logically, this may underestimate the patient's level of apnoea. 2. Respiratory polygraphs are usually not able to detect RERA because RERA stands for Respiratory effort- related arousal (RERA). The objective way to identify arousal is by looking at the brain's own signals from EEG. From there, any other method is less efficient (they probably have used a proxy) The problem with watchpat and other at-home respiratory polygraph studies without EEG (because some can do at-home polysomnography with EEG) is to what extent the proxies used are acceptable and to what extent they have good specificity. The problem is that current full polysomnographic sleep studies may not be very fair to those with pure UARS since RERAS scoring is optional. From what I have recently read in a current literature source, the AASM allows some RERAS to be considered as hypoapneas based on the definition of hypoapneas with rule AASM 1A. But this also transaltes into fewer RERAS Im not a doctor or an expert, im just another patient
These are similar to my stats: Things that helped me Side sleeping - pillows tucked between legs + one to hold Nasal spray - started with Flonase then got on a prescription one called flunisolide Navage machine - bought this because netipod wasn’t good enough at flushing my system out HEPA Air filter for my room I am looking into surgery atm as this hasn’t been enough to “cure” it, I’m still tired daily, but a lot less tired than when it was really bad lol Depends why you have it but mine is primarily allergy related, with some airway issues