Sleep test - Brain wave patterns

Alvin said:
If you really believe that then there is no point me arguing, your not going to accept anything i say so good luck with that.
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The second sleep specialist effectively laughed at the initial sleep specialist’s diagnosis. She borded on condescending toward him, but it was her professionalism that moderated it.
You are diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea when you have 10 apnea events per hour. I had 10.2 ‘events’, average. However, it wasn’t until the second specialist evaluated the results, that she found they were almost all hypopnea events (‘mini’ apnea events). No different from the normal population.
That the APAP (CPAP) machine did nothing for my fatigue in the 2 years prior to seeing the second specialist (as well as having a less professional home sleep test during this period that only resulted in 6 indicated events per hour), confirmed the second specialist.
On top of the initial sleep test, the sleep laboratory also make money from you by renting the CPAP machine for a couple of weeks, with a view to subsequently selling it to you.
Feeling naive yet?
 
Dial It In said:
Feeling naive yet?
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Nope, being misdiagnosed is not at all uncommon, i was misdiagnosed maybe a dozen times over my ME/CFS and non 24 hour circadian rhythm disorder.
There is a reason its called a medical opinion. I will not argue for a second that doctors are infallible because they certainly are not. I would be interested in research on misdiagnosis statistics, i'll bet its not at all uncommon. What i hate are the docs who don't listen when you say symptoms don't match or treatments aren't working, that grinds my gears because their arrogance shows when they only listen to what they want to hear. I saw one specialist who i was warned is a royal jackass, and me being naive said i don't really care if he knows what he is doing. Not only was he a real jerk he cherry picked my symptoms, wanted to give me in his mind excellent treatment (as if) and we got into an argument when i told him he was not listening to the rest of my symptoms which contradicted his diagnoses. I never went back. I don't blame the entire discipline for his attitude or mistakes.
I'm sorry if you were misdiagnosed, its happened to me too many times and probably to most everyone on this forum :cry:
 
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Jonathan Edwards said:
I think @Dial It In is right. Sleep medicine is a trendy area that lots of chest physicians have gone into because there is nobody with chronic bronchitis any more.
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Interesting, @Jonathan Edwards. My sleep doctor is a neurologist and is retiring. The doctor replacing him is a pulmonologist, so I'll have to find someone else. I had been wondering why a pulmonologist would go into sleep medicine.
 
Alvin said:
Nope, being misdiagnosed is not at all uncommon, i was misdiagnosed maybe a dozen times over my ME/CFS and non 24 hour circadian rhythm disorder.
There is a reason its called a medical opinion.
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There is no 'opinion' in reading a plot graph. Only fraud. Unless I am setting the intellectual bar too high.....
 
There is no way on God's green Earth that I'd want to live with 10 events per hour, hypopneas or not. These are not "normal" scores in any measure.

Anything over 5 events per hour while on APAP is considered failed treatment in the USA. Good treatment ideally gets a patient under 1 or (less ideally) 2. I would not consider AHIs of 6-10 acceptable in any measure.

The doctor whose opinion deserves derision isn't the first one IMO, but the second one who'd leave such bad scores untreated.

Bill
 
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Inara said:
What I mislike in particular is if a doctor says "That can't be possible". Gosh! :cautious: It's one of my dearest hobbies to invent stories about symptoms. Hm...maybe I really could like it. :sneaky:
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Indeed, i had variations of this discussion several times as well, thats not possible, well here i am, i'm not making it up, i'm here because i'm hoping you can figure out what is really wrong with me, not for an ice cream social :emoji_face_palm:
 
Bill said:
There is no way on God's green Earth that I'd want to live with 10 events per hour, hypopneas or not. These are not "normal" scores in any measure.

Anything over 5 events per hour while on APAP is considered failed treatment in the USA. Good treatment ideally gets a patient under 1 or (less ideally) 2. I would not consider AHIs of 6-10 acceptable in any measure.

The doctor who opinion deserves derision isn't the first one IMO, but the second one who'd leave such bad scores untreated.

Bill
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Are you able to link to independent standards regarding your statements?
I have been advised that 5-6 apnea events per hour are considered normal (meaty part of bell curve of a normally distributed population, untreated)
 
Dial It In said:
Are you able to link to independent standards regarding your statements?
I have been advised that 5-6 apnea events per hour are considered normal (meaty part of bell curve of a normally distributed population, untreated)
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Doing even the most cursory web search should prove to your satisfaction what the standards are. You have been "advised" wrongly, and the misinformation is to your detriment. 5-6 apneas per hour is considered failed therapy by professionals in the field, and sleep apnea patients experiencing such levels will report feeling much worse than those with well-controlled <1-2 AHIs.

I think your second doctor did you a tremendous disservice sending you away without treatment.

ME/CFS and sleep apnea are not mutually exclusive conditions. Averaging 6 AHI on top of having ME/CFS is an assault on your system that you simply don't need.

Here is but one citation to back my contention of "the standards" (which are otherwise widely known):

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is defined as the occurrence of at least 5 episodes per hour of sleep during which respiration temporarily ceases.1

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096276/

Bill



 
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Bill said:
Doing even the most cursory web search should prove to your satisfaction what the standards are. You have been "advised" wrongly, and the misinformation is to your detriment. 5-6 apneas per hour is considered failed therapy by professionals in the field, and sleep apnea patients experiencing such levels will report feeling much worse than those with well-controlled <1-2 AHIs.

I think your second doctor did you a tremendous disservice sending you away without treatment.

ME/CFS and sleep apnea are not mutually exclusive conditions. Averaging 6 AHI on top of having ME/CFS is an assault no your system that you simply don't need.

Here is but one citation to back my contention of "the standards" (which are otherwise widely known):

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is defined as the occurrence of at least 5 episodes per hour of sleep during which respiration temporarily ceases.1

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096276/

Bill
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I will have to investigate this further.
A separate test I undertook at home resulted in between 6 & 7 events per hour & this was also considered normal - again I was told I did not have OSA.
I was advised by the first sleep physician, that the cutoff in Australia is 10 events for diagnosis.
 
Also forgot to add that I also saw an Ear/Nose/Throat Physician who stuck a ‘snake’ camera up my nose & down my throat & stated unequivocally that my nasal passage was clear & there was not enough ‘lumpiness’ at the back of my tongue to be causing OSA. He bluntly started that any OSA was not the cause of my fatigue.
 
Dial It In said:
I will have to investigate this further.
A separate test I undertook at home resulted in between 6 & 7 events per hour & this was also considered normal - again I was told I did not have OSA.
I was advised by the first sleep physician, that the cutoff in Australia is 10 events for diagnosis.
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I would certainly investigate further. Those telling you that AHIs of 6-7 are "normal" are wrong, and a national standard to treat apneas only when they are over 10 AHI is against the interests of that nation's citizenry.

There are a couple sleep apnea related forums where you could discuss the situation. I don't think anyone would accept living with 6-10 AHIs or consider such results acceptable.

Your first doctor was acting in your best interest. The second physician was not.

Bill
 
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