Two things worth separating, because they get argued as one.

Whether the data is being collected is a question about your machine and its modem. Who can read it, and for how long is a question about the portal your supplier and clinic use, and about the account relationships behind it — which can outlive your relationship with that supplier unless somebody removes them.

Neither question has a single answer across countries or manufacturers, and neither is answered by the leaflet in the box. The one thing under your own control in every case is keeping the detailed record yourself: How to Download CPAP Data from Your SD Card (ResMed, Philips, Löwenstein, BMC, Hoffrichter) covers getting it off the card.

When it is worth picking up the phone rather than watching the trend, in plain terms:

• the clear-airway count is not settling after a couple of months, or is climbing;
• the pattern is regular waxing-and-waning breathing rather than isolated pauses;
• you feel worse rather than better, or you are waking gasping;
• you have a heart condition, or take opioids or other respiratory-depressant medication — both of these change the picture and both are reasons to have it looked at rather than watched.

What not to do in the meantime: do not raise your own pressure to try to clear them. Pressure is a common cause of this pattern, not a cure for it, and the direction of travel is a clinical judgement made from your data.

Neighbouring article: Central vs Obstructive Apnea: What 'Clear Airway' (CA) Events Mean — for telling the two apart before drawing conclusions.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

Reading, for both halves:

• Can't Tolerate CPAP? A New-User Adjustment and Claustrophobia Guide — the tolerance and adaptation side.
• Still Tired on CPAP With Good Numbers? Reasons and Next Steps — for when the nights look fine and the days do not.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

Reading:

• How to Read CPAP Usage Hours and What 'Compliant' Really Means — what usage figures mean and how they are counted.
• CPAP Compliance Report: How to Get One for Your Doctor or Insurance — the report itself, and what is actually on it.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

And from the shelf's side: tell us when an article is out of date.

Machines get firmware updates, apps get discontinued, manufacturers change what their software will export. An article that was accurate a year ago can quietly stop being true, and the person who notices is almost always somebody who just tried to do the thing it describes.

Reply under the Library topic itself if it is about that article, or here if it is about the shelf as a whole — a room that is missing a subject, five topics that should be one, an overview topic that sends you the wrong way.

For the neighbouring problems this thread keeps touching, the shelf has:

• CPAP Dry Mouth and Mouth Breathing: How to Stop It Tonight — dry mouth, and why it is so often a mouth-leak symptom.
• CPAP Mask Leaks & Mouth Leak: Causes, the Data Threshold, and Fixes — the leak checklist in order.
• CPAP Nasal Congestion and Stuffy Nose: Causes and Fixes — the opposite complaint, congestion on therapy.
• Troubleshooting & Optimizing CPAP — the overview topic for the whole room.

Comfort settings are yours to adjust; pressure is not. If comfort problems are pushing you towards changing prescribed settings, that is the moment to talk to somebody rather than to the menu.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

Reading:

• CPAP Dry Mouth and Mouth Breathing: How to Stop It Tonight — mouth breathing, dryness, and the whole set of remedies.
• CPAP Mask Leaks & Mouth Leak: Causes, the Data Threshold, and Fixes — the leak side, including how to read the shape.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

Reading for the comparison itself:

• Why Does My AHI Change Night to Night? Normal Variation Explained — what is noise and what is a trend.
• Why Is My AHI High on CPAP? Causes and How to Find Yours — when the number really has moved, and the usual reasons.
• CPAP 95th-Percentile vs Median Pressure: What the Numbers Mean — the pressure figure that is worth comparing across months.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

The shelf has this in more depth, for anyone who wants the sourced version:

• What Is a Good AHI on CPAP? AHI Ranges and Residual AHI Explained — what the ranges are and where they come from.
• Why Does My AHI Change Night to Night? Normal Variation Explained — why the number moves when nothing changed.
• CPAP Leak Rate: What's Acceptable and How to Fix High Leaks — the number to read next to the event count.
• Reading Your CPAP Data — the overview topic, if you would rather start wide.

Reading:

• CPAP Mask Types and Fit: Nasal, Pillow, and Full-Face Compared — the three classes, what each does well, and how to size them.
• CPAP Nasal Congestion and Stuffy Nose: Causes and Fixes — question 1 above, which decides more of this than anything else.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

Reading, for the three separate problems this thread braids together:

• CPAP Dry Mouth and Mouth Breathing: How to Stop It Tonight — the dryness itself.
• CPAP Mask Leaks & Mouth Leak: Causes, the Data Threshold, and Fixes — the leak checklist, in order.
• CPAP Nasal Congestion and Stuffy Nose: Causes and Fixes — for when the nose is part of the story.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

The shelf on both halves of this:

• CPAP Mask Leaks & Mouth Leak: Causes, the Data Threshold, and Fixes — the checklist above with the sourced detail.
• Mask Off & Large-Leak Events: Why Your CPAP Report Shows Gaps — what the large-leak and mask-off markers actually mean in your data.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

The shelf covers each of these properly:

• CPAP Flow Limitation: The Hidden Metric Beyond AHI — the metric that explains most of this thread.
• RERA and Flow Limitation: The Events That Don't Show in Your AHI — arousals that never become scored events.
• UARS (Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome): The Diagnosis Your AHI Misses — the diagnosis that a good AHI can hide.
• Still Tired on CPAP With Good Numbers? Reasons and Next Steps — the overview, if you want one page rather than four.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

For the background rather than the buttons, the shelf has the articles this thread keeps circling:

• CPAP Flow Limitation: The Hidden Metric Beyond AHI — why a near-perfect event count can sit on top of hundreds of flow-limited breaths.
• UARS (Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome): The Diagnosis Your AHI Misses — the condition that lives in exactly that gap, and why a home sleep test can come back normal.
• Still Tired on CPAP With Good Numbers? Reasons and Next Steps — the checklist people actually arrive with.

The engines can show you a pattern. What that pattern means for you is a conversation with the person who can order a test and change a prescription.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

The shelf on this:

• CPAP Dry Mouth and Mouth Breathing: How to Stop It Tonight — dry mouth and mouth breathing, with the full set of fixes.
• CPAP Mask Types and Fit: Nasal, Pillow, and Full-Face Compared — what each mask class does well and badly.
• CPAP Nasal Congestion and Stuffy Nose: Causes and Fixes — for step 1 above, which is the step most people skip.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

The shelf for this, in the order it is most useful:

• Still Tired on CPAP With Good Numbers? Reasons and Next Steps — the same question with the sourced version of the answer.
• CPAP Leak Rate: What's Acceptable and How to Fix High Leaks — the number to read next to the event count, and why.
• Why Does My AHI Change Night to Night? Normal Variation Explained — why the figure moves when nothing has changed.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

The reference versions, for anyone who would rather read than ask:

• How to Read Your CPAP Data: A Plain-English Guide to AHI, Leak Rate & Pressure — the whole page, in the order above.
• CPAP Leak Rate: What's Acceptable and How to Fix High Leaks — step 1, and the one that decides whether the rest is worth reading.

One thing this board will not do: nobody here will tell you what to set your machine to. What a chart read gets you is a clear description of what is happening and when — which is what makes an appointment productive.

Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.

A note on how to use the shelf, since it is the biggest thing here.

Library is one topic per published article, grouped into five rooms: understanding the condition, the machines, reading the data, the tools, and troubleshooting. The topic holds the summary and the link; the article itself stays on the site, where it is kept up to date. Five of them are overview topics, pinned at the top of their room — start there if you do not know which question you are asking yet, for example Reading Your CPAP Data.

Only staff can start topics in the Library, so the shelf stays a shelf. Replies are open to every verified member — if an article is out of date, or missing the one paragraph you needed, the reply box under it is the fastest route to getting it fixed.