Just amazed

Today I finally got the results to my sleep study. I was told that i have severe OSA which is very scary. They told me that i stopped breathing 65 times in just one hour. My oxygen at the lowest went down to 79% I am told that I will need a CPAP machine and i have to wait for that to happen now. Has anyone else had OSA this severe that would like to talk to me about it? I would like to know how much of an improvement they got by the machine. What to expect? What machine has the best reviews, do you usually get to pick out which one you want?

Mine was measured at 80 AHI in January. Welcome to the club! It's good to have a diagnosis, isn't it? The treatment is going to help you a lot and be a huge relief. People with apnea as severe as we have just can not breath without cpap. I'm sure you have had the same experience, as I have, of constantly waking up just as you were falling asleep.

I suggest that you don't just wait for things to happen but to call often and find out what stage the process is at. Typically, the doctor's office sends the prescription tot he DME and then the DME contacts you.

This is an extremely important part of the process! You need to make sure that you get a good, auto, data-capable machine so that you can monitor and adjust your therapy as needed. The DME makes more money by giving you a low end, less capable machine because he makes more money that way. The insurance pays the same price in both cases. The difference is the profit made by the DME.

Here is a good explanation, but it has not been updated for the newest models of cpap machines - people here can help you with the latest machines: https://maskarrayed.wordpress.com/what- ... me-part-i/

Yeah, lots of others have had worse numbers than you.
My blood oxygen was down in the 60s.

More links:

https://sleep.tnet.com/

https://sleep.tnet.com/cmd

viewtopic/t88983/Pugsys-PointersSleepyH ... Hints.html

wiki/index.php/Main_Page


Den

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Bcatz3 wrote:They told me that i stopped breathing 65 times in just one hour. My oxygen at the lowest went down to 79%... Has anyone else had OSA this severe that would like to talk to me about it?

I had my first sleep study eight years ago. My AHI was 75, but O2 saturation was only down to 92%. The reason I went to a sleep doctor was because I had hypersomnia. Neither my wife nor I had ever noticed excessive snoring or OSAs. Going into it, I would've thought there was maybe a 50/50 chance that I even had significant apneas. Boy was I wrong.

Bcatz3 wrote:I would like to know how much of an improvement they got by the machine.

I think I'm one of the few that did not experience any subjective improvement over the years I used a BiPAP. I only discovered on my own this year that my hypersomnia was due to a medication.

Bcatz3 wrote:What machine has the best reviews, do you usually get to pick out which one you want?

I've only ever used Philips Respironics machines--two total now--so I don't know which brand or models is best. Others on here can give you advice about that. I don't know if I could have picked one out, but both times one was chosen for me.

For some people the difference in quality of life is amazing from the very first day.
For others it takes longer - sometimes up to a year.

But always remember that your symptoms are only the tip of the iceberg, what is happening under the surface is very real damage to your organs and brain. Even if you don't "feel better" at first, you are preventing really nasty damage from happening to large parts of your body.

Welcome to the forum... AHI 65 is bad but far from hopeless; mine was 140 and my oxygen level dropped to 50 something percent.
I have been on this therapy for over 2 1/2 years now and it is not hopeless... It gets better..

Take 15 minutes and review this youtube video it will help you understand what is going on..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gie2dhqP2c

This video put the whole thing in perspective for me. I was able to show this to my family and friends so that they also could understand what is going on.
It should be required viewing for any one that is new.

Work all your therapy issues here!

I wish you well..

When you go on CPAP, the higher the pre-cpap number, the better. CPAP clears up the issue for the majority of people, so you can expect a pretty significant improvement in your quality of life. Somebody with mild sleep apnea will not get the same level of improvement because it doesn't affect them as much.

My number was 36.9. I am not clinically treated with AHIs less the 1 most nights.

Mine was ahi 69. It took a while for me because I got the wrong machine and wrong setup after but after I got everything figured out I felt a 1000 times better

Make sure you get a data capable machine

Considering how my suffering has been reduced, I cannot fathom how much misery
people with the high numbers must have felt before treatment;
and I especially cannot comprehend some people's resistance to treatment.
After my AHI has come from 13 down to about 1, my life is completely different with cpap.

chunkyfrog wrote:Considering how my suffering has been reduced, I cannot fathom how much misery
people with the high numbers must have felt before treatment;
and I especially cannot comprehend some people's resistance to treatment.
After my AHI has come from 13 down to about 1, my life is completely different with cpap.

Extremely tired always, grouchy, depressed, scared to drive because you can't remember getting to work, desperate

Greg Riddle wrote:

chunkyfrog wrote:Considering how my suffering has been reduced, I cannot fathom how much misery
people with the high numbers must have felt before treatment;
and I especially cannot comprehend some people's resistance to treatment.
After my AHI has come from 13 down to about 1, my life is completely different with cpap.

Extremely tired always, grouchy, depressed, scared to drive because you can't remember getting to work, desperate

I've got severe apnea, too, and this was the clincher for me. I'd get somewhere after an hour's drive, and could not tell you how I'd made it. Very scary - I easily could have hit someone in one of those fogs.

My memory's already getting better after a month on CPAP, too. Before, I had a terrible time remembering things I was supposed to be doing, or remembering to take things I needed if I was going on a trip. There are a lot of issues that I had no idea were affected by apnea -- I just thought I was naturally scatterbrained.