I think it would be rare that a sleep doc would know anything much about machine settings. Such doctors exist, I'm sure, but I would think them to be the exception to the rule.Slinky wrote:. . . there was NO MENTION of ANY SETTINGS except IPAP and EPAP on my bi-level script. I wonder if my sleep doc would even have a clue if I asked about them and adjusting them? . . . .
A sleep doc mostly just looks (well, hopefully, he actually looks ) at the sleep-study data a PSG tech has collected and then the doc writes a scrip based on the recommendation from the tech as to treatment pressures, and maybe a ramp setting. I think the rest of the settings are often left up to treatment techs.
The medical industry isn't ready to deal with OSA patients that make their own adjustments, but there is no provision for the docs and techs to have the time to fiddle with the adjustments for us either. Add CPOD to the mix, and a relatively new technology, like the VPAP Auto, and it gets complicated very quickly as to figuring out how best someone can be helped.
A hospital RT who was willing to read the VPAP Auto clinician's manual and then to pass on some general guidelines/principles "off the record" might be the best an OSA patient with mild CPOD who is making her own adjustments could hope for.