420E

I met with my pulm. dr. He gave me little face time as did the RT. They have a company "they get nothing back from",
I will speak to them on Monday. I was "advised'' that if I ''wanted to go and buy my machine elsewhere" that'd be great. But was sort of ''encouraged'' to rent. I had printed out all the 420E and the RT said when she called in my scrip that she'd tell them, that is the one I'd ''like".....so I can wade thru the muck of ins. whatevers, next wk. Also, I'm going w/their DME for now, as they come out to see me, and at least I can focus on me and not the hospital setting where I just said put on the n. pillows and let me take my ambient and good night. I had a bad sinus reaction after the titration, which has now become acute bronchitis, so I'll start the cpap rent/buy/insurance experience off on Monday.
Any pointers?

As promised to Rested gal, my info from the 2 studies was:
Diagnosis: 133 resp. disturbances, 124 hyponeas, 7 obstructive and 2 centrals. (What does this mean, hyponeas?) Longest apnea 46 seconds, longest hyopnea 68 seconds. Overall events averaged 22 per hour.
Up to 57 events in REM sleep. O2 sat was 79%. Almost 2% of study spent sat's below 90%. Resp disturbances resulted in severe hypoxemia and significant framentation of the REM stage. Heart rate in 80's. No arrythmia's noted.
Impression: normal total sleep + efficiency (thanks to ambien ). Architectural abnormalites as described, marked increase in sleep fragmentation due to resp. disturbances. Moderate alpha wave intrusion.
Characterized as obstructive hyponeas and apneas, very sign. in REM resulting in severe hypoxemia and micro fragmentation.


TITRATION: Sleep onset latency normal. Latency to REM +. A slight increase in gross awakenings. Brief. Micro arousals occurred with normal freq. Severe alpha wave noted.

Snoring abolished as CPAP was applied and titrated. 19 resp. disturbances were observed consisting of 12 hypopneas, and 3 obst. and 4 central apneas. Events were brief and of NO IMPACT TO sleep quality. No sign. O2 sats's were seen thru out study. At the final CPAP press. of 12 the apnea/hypop index was 1 event per hour. COMMENTS: Recommended be started on CPAP at a pressure of 12 using Swift np and chin strap and heated inline humidifcation.

So how does this all sound to everyone who's been thru this?
Does CPAP sound like my answer?

Dr. said bi-pap did not.

Thank you all!

Hi Gailzeee,

From your report, you have moderate sleep apnea. The biggest concerns would be sleep fragmentation and hypoxia.

Hypopnea is a reduction in flow of %50 with a 3 % desaturation of blood oxygen levels. It means your thoat is open only 50% and that is not enough to sustain adequate breathing and blood oxygen levels.

With CPAP you did well. Still a few events, but greatly reduced, and stable oxygen levels.

In time, you should feel much better using a cpap machine. Even if your insurance only wants to give you cpap, you will be fine. I do recommend that if you can only get a cpap, to get a Remstar with Cflex . This will make your nights more comfortable.

I bet you cannot wait to get started I am sure you have been fatigued due to sleep fragmentaion and low oxygen levels.

Congratulations, it looks like you had a smooth study.

Cheers,

Ted

Gail, you can't do better than Ted's great advice. He's a tech who used to do sleep studies and scored them.

Hope you can get an autopap; but if, as Ted said, insurance dictates straight cpap, then shoot for the cpap with C-Flex.

Good luck!

Hi Ted and Rested Gal:
what exactly will the C-flex do? I'm calling the dme tomorrow, wish me luck. I can't wait to get it and get started. Met a friend of mine who I found out her husband has a CPAP, 5 yrs and counting. said it was hard at first, but is doing great now, can't be without it. So one more happy patient.

Will keep you and ''wading thru the muck" informed of the DME insurance run around I start tomorrow.

txs.......

rested gal wrote:Gail, you can't do better than Ted's great advice. He's a tech who used to do sleep studies and scored them.

Hope you can get an autopap; but if, as Ted said, insurance dictates straight cpap, then shoot for the cpap with C-Flex.

Good luck!

Whatever you get should work as long as its a Autotitrating unit. Save a bunch of money, Buy at cpap.com. PB 420 with humidifier (a must have) and software 799 add another 100 for a mask.

Cheers,

Chris

Hi Gail,

I'll take a turn at this.

C-flex is a feature found on the Remstar machines made by Respironics. The machines are all black and rectangular. So you can recognize them I'll post a picture below. What c-flex will do for you is make it easier to exhale. There are three levels of relief it provides all adjustable by the user. The way this feels in use is the pressure seems to almost disapear as you begin to exhale and until just before your next inhalation. It is a very nice feature that makes using the machine more tolerable.

The Remstar Auto w/ C-flex
(shown with the heated humidifier)

Thanks for the info and photo. Is this an auto?
Sounds as if auto is a big help.
Is this a heavy clunky thing if you want to travel?
I'll think about this one, when the DME person shows up, I have a pad full of questions............tomorrow the fun will start with the DME.
Wish me luck..................
Gail
PS--yes I am looking forward to it, but am anxious over the sleeping. I have poor sleep now. Does everyone think that this cpap will help the poor sleep, inability to fall asleep. If I don't take ambien and a xanax NOTHING. I do not like taking medications but as we all know, when you can't sleep, it's murder.
Txs.
G

wading thru the muck! wrote:Hi Gail,

I'll take a turn at this.

C-flex is a feature found on the Remstar machines made by Respironics. The machines are all black and rectangular. So you can recognize them I'll post a picture below. What c-flex will do for you is make it easier to exhale. There are three levels of relief it provides all adjustable by the user. The way this feels in use is the pressure seems to almost disapear as you begin to exhale and until just before your next inhalation. It is a very nice feature that makes using the machine more tolerable.

The Remstar Auto w/ C-flex
(shown with the heated humidifier)

Gail,

Yes this is an auto-pap. It's the way to go! I'll attach a picture below of a smaller alterative the Puritan Bennett 420E. It is a very good machine but is lacking the c-flex feature if that is important to you.

Puritan Bennett 420E
w/Heated Humidifier