Dear wife and her data

My wife has had sleep problems (getting to sleep) for a long time and finally last night she got 6 hours on a Airsense 10 Auto with P10 nasal mask. She has taken sleep meds but is off them now. No sleep study has been done for her. Midway through the night she took the mask off and put it back on, but couldn't breathe, so we had to adjust the minimum from 6 to 10. Her graph is as follows. Can we diagnose OSA to her, even though she has no events? She has random light to heavy snoring, and random pauses in breathing.

trslp1 wrote:Can we diagnose OSA to her, even though she has no events? She has random light to heavy snoring, and random pauses in breathing.

SDB probably, OSA, no.

but even so, it's likely worth it to wear the mask to eliminate the snoring and flow limitations, both of which reduce the restfulness of sleep.

What's to discuss...she never had a sleep study...we don't know if she ever had OSA. The charts show ZERO.

Maybe try a fixed 6 cm with EPR set to 2... pressure and see what shows up on the reports. Do you think she would be okay with that?

She's got something going on for the machine to want to increase the pressures like that.

Insomnia is not OSA or vice versa. If she has insomnia she should be investigated for that and not randomly use a machine designed for obstructive apnea.

IF she has OSA, the machine could be treating it at the settings you are using. It is like putting prescription glasses on someone, then asking them to read the eye chart.

In my opinion, the purpose of a diagnosis is to get someone to pay for treatment. If you already have the treatment, there is no need for a diagnosis.

In harmony with PR's point earlier in the thread: If she sleeps better using the machine, particularly once she gets used to the machine and comfort is optimized, then using the machine is worth it, whether others would consider her as having met the criteria for any defined sleep-breathing syndrome or not. Some posters here have said they would continue to use PAP therapy even if their OSA were cured, since the humidified, filtered air makes them more comfortable and helps with allergy symptoms, etc.

No insurance company will pay for a PAP machine to "treat" snoring, but every sleep doc (in my opinion) knows that many people who snore would have a much higher quality of life if they used PAP. It has not been definitively proven by medical science that snoring alone should be treated, but studies have indicated that snoring alone can be damaging to sleep and, of course, damaging to the sleep of the bed partner.

Good sleep is necessary to live as safely as possible, since sleepy people are more prone to accidents and judgment slip ups. So anything that improves someone's sleep is potentially life-saving to the person and everyone around that person.

tooter wrote:What's to discuss...she never had a sleep study...we don't know if she ever had OSA. The charts show ZERO.

you seem to think that SDB is a simple thing, it's not.

Thanks all, dear wife is finding the transition to cpap very frustrating. It took 4 nights to finally get more than 1 hour of data. I expect that we will file this away and return to normal programming for her, while I will get the machine back to my side of the bed and focus on continuing to improve my sleep. It has only been 4 weeks since we even heard of cpap. We are impressed with the level of professionalism and support that exists here.

Expect to see some more from me once I have a stable base of data gathered, and some things to share. For me it is definitely worth continuing the journey. For her, it takes a big event to convince her to make a change of this magnitude. For me, just improving my daytime alertness is a win, and I feel better already. Dear wife appreciates the sudden elimination of snoring from me too.

Awesome and thanks...