Catching Some Zzzz's

I wish I could report that we're all starting to sleep through the night again, but unfortunately, the title of this post is only meant to describe the fact that we got Annie's sleep study results today. 

Annie had a routine CPAP titration sleep study last week and we talked with the pulmonologist about the results today.  We knew her apnea was severe, even after getting her tonsils and adenoids removed. She's been using CPAP for the last 4 years, but they like to check her pressures every few years. At this latest study they only let Annie sleep without support for a short while--during which she had several long episodes of apnea lasting 20-30 seconds each, with her oxygen saturations dipping into the 80's.  Not good.  Thirty seconds is a long time to be holding your breath, especially repeatedly in back-to-back episodes!

She's been at a pressure of 9 the last 4 years, but during the study, she was still having an average of 10 episodes an hour at that pressure level.  As they increased to a pressure of 10 the episodes went down to about 1 every hour.  Much better, especially compared to a pressure of 7 with which she had 30 episodes an hour!  So we'll be keeping her pressure at 10 now and hopefully Annie will start feeling better rested... as soon as we get her knee pain and UTI pain under control so she can sleep!