Choosing a CPAP machine

Help....My Dad has just been diagnosed with sleep apnoea, tolerated the sleep study well and was recommended Resmed products, he found the resmed sprint FX mask great, but would really appreciate feedback from real users with no company bias. My brother and I want to get him a good product. Being a pensioner I could see he would probably opt for a cheap product, so we would appreciate anything you can tell us.

cheers in anticipation

Welcome, please sign up for an ID on this board. You'll probably be here for a while.

Does he have insurance? Medicare?

Does he have a CPAP machine yet? When will he get one? Are you in the UK?

Was that a "Swift" FX mask instead of "Sprint"?

https://www.cpap.com/productpage/resmed ... dgear.html

If you have insurance in the US, you often pay the same amount for the mask, no matter which one you get. The Swift FX is fine. You may need to replace the pillows fairly often. Pillows are the part that actually touches your nose. I like my ComfortGel Blue mask, and the parts don't have to be replaced as often.

https://www.cpap.com/productpage/respir ... dgear.html

Hey,

I can't offer advice but I too am in Australia. The Resmed was recommended to me by many and I plan on getting one of those. Trialling a machine at the moment that isn't resmed. Resmed does cost more but i'm yet to hear anything bad about it.

Good luck. hopefully someone with more knowledge can respond.

Frankie84 wrote:Hey,

I can't offer advice but I too am in Australia. The Resmed was recommended to me by many and I plan on getting one of those. Trialling a machine at the moment that isn't resmed. Resmed does cost more but i'm yet to hear anything bad about it.

Good luck. hopefully someone with more knowledge can respond.

Hi fellow Aussie...thanks for that info, from the small amount of research I have done Resmed does look good, I think I would rather pay more money and get good quality
I am so appreciating this forum already, people are very helpful.

Resmed makes fine machines.

However, it's worth knowing the following about the different models:

1) Anything other than an S9 series model is an older, no longer manufactured product. And the older machines use proprietary data cards. Get an S9---you Dad will be using the machine for a long time to come and there's no reason to go cheap and get an older model.

2) Personally I'd recommend a full efficacy data machine. That means I think you ought to be looking at the Resmed S9 Elite CPAP or the Resmed S9 AutoSet. And I'd choose the AutoSet over the Elite since the AutoSet can be run in either Auto mode or CPAP mode. Avoid both the S9 Escape and the S9 Auto Escape since they will not record all the efficacy data.

3) The reasons you want a full data machine include both making sure therapy is actually working AND to provide significant help in trouble shooting any potential problems. Leak issues are pretty common for newcomers, but we don't always notice significant leaks that occur when we're asleep. There are tell-tale signs that leaks might be going on, but the leak numbers and, more importantly, the leak graph in ResScan provide much more help in figuring out if there is a problem and how bad the problem is. So even if you and your Dad aren't that interested in regularly tracking the AHI, being able to see the AHI and the leak data can be critically important if your Dad runs into problems learning how to sleep with the mask on his nose.

The videos here offer a lot of good information.

http://www.cpaplibrary.com/machines.html

is there a Resmed sprint machine??

I don't think sprint is the word you are looking for. I think the word is spirit. In Australia ResMed called their machines Spirit model whatever. This was a term used for with S8 series machines. I have not seen the term used with the new S9 machines but I don't frequent Aussie cpap suppliers often. The one I just pulled up though, doesn't mention Spirit in their product descriptions.

I would advise to get the S9 model (yes AutoSet would be ideal) . It offers more data and uses the little SD card. If your computer has a SD slot in it then nothing else is needed. At worst if no SD slot then a cheap generic SD card reader will do.
The S8 models used a smart card and pricey special card reader and less data. Old technology.

You can't go wrong with the S9 Autoset. Don't bother with the S9 Elite. The price difference (at least in N.A.) is so small ($50) it isn't worth considering when you're spending that much money.

The mask choice is a much more important decision. Spend some time trying on different masks and read everything you can about them. It seems when most people fail to use their CPAP, it's because they can't get used to the mask. And it's a very individual choice. SOme people will like one and not another.