Why taking your treatment into your own hands is important..

NickD25 · Post by **NickD25** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 6:05 pm

I got my BiPAP Auto last week and from the get go, I started it on Auto to established a good pressure setting. However, last night, I try a little experience and set it up at my prescribed pressure of 7-17... I had an awful night, so this morning I took a look at the results: 38.4 AHI!!

But thanks to all the post on how to work with the machine and interpret my results, I now know that my real pressure should be around 18(EPAP)-21(IPAP) instead. I still need a little tweaking because I'm having too many hyponea but I'm getting there.

I've wrote this post to encourage people to take their treatment into their hands and change their own setting. I can't begin to imagine what it would have been not knowing how my machine would have work and having my DME lock my at 7-17. I wouldn't have known my AHI either and would have been stuck going back again to my DME and having to take an appointment with my sleep doctor, etc etc etc and probably got another messed up titration and would still be tired to death.

Hope this can help newcomers realise that the titration can be completely wrong because of so many factors that you don't have at home. And that after the prescription, the best bet is to set your machine yourself.

mindy · Post by **mindy** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 6:08 pm

Great to hear from you, Nick!

There are always people who wonder why it's so important to have a machine with data capability. Your post is a great example of why!

Mindy

RosemaryB · Post by **RosemaryB** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:03 pm

I've felt confident about doing this with a regular cpap, but would be confused with the bipap. With help of others on this board, I imagine it would be workable, but harder to establish.

ETA: I definitely agree about taking your therapy into your own hands. I was doing that already to some degree with some other medical problems, but this pushed me over the edge. There were so many incompetent and/or less than honest people in this system, most of us don't have any other choice. We are lucky if we have a doctor who supports us in this, but this is not easy to fin.

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): bipap, CPAP

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