Does the S9 AutoSet have an alarm?

I keep taking my mask off while I'm sleeping, and it's bugging the crap out of me. I WANT to be 100% compliant, but I'm thwarting myself. I have searched and searched and can't seem to find a definitive answer...does the S9 AutoSet have an alarm for this situation or not? I have gone through the clinician menu about 100 times and I am not seeing anything about it.

This thread seems to say both. (And no, I do NOT hear the machine blowing freely when I am asleep, nor has apnea ever woken me up (at least, not enough I remember it), so I would *really* like if I could turn an alarm on that would wake me up when I take the damn mask off, sigh)

Get yourself a pulse oximeter. Tape it to your finger. Works like a charm.

Loreena wrote:Get yourself a pulse oximeter. Tape it to your finger. Works like a charm.

Please explain how this will alert him when he takes off his mask!

You can try taping the mask to your face using first aid tape. That should wake you up. I am not familiar with any alarm on the S9.

LSAT wrote:

Loreena wrote:Get yourself a pulse oximeter. Tape it to your finger. Works like a charm.

Please explain how this will alert him when he takes off his mask!

Easy, me lovely LSAT. And great question too! When you take off your mask and you fall back asleep, you start having events (because you're not getting any cpap therapy). The events (lack of O2) increase your heart rate and/or your O2 drops. You can set the pulse ox to alarm you at whatever threshold you do not want your O2 to drop below, or you can set the pulse rate at a limit and when that limit is reached, the pulse ox will alarm you. I do it every night. If I I get a large leak or take the mask off and forget to put it back on again, I'll start having events which will usually increase my heart rate first. When it gets to 73 (the rate I've set), it starts beeping. I wake up and fix the leak or put the mask back on. Does this help?

Taping the mask on hasn't helped thus far. Apparently I'm quite adept at removing tape in my sleep, too I'm about ready to try duct tape wrapped around my head a few times, but I don't relish trying to get that goo it leaves behind out of my hair.

I do have a pulse oximeter (CM50whatever) with an alarm, I'll give that a go.

I think the "alarm" on the S9 for large leak is only on the VPAP model and not available on the Autoset.
It's not the greatest of alarms either.

About the only thing I can think of is to make it more difficult for you to remove the mask during the night.
Some tape in a few strategic places over the straps maybe...hopefully the removal of the tape might wake you up enough to stop the removal of the mask.
Some people have worn mittens to bed to try to limit finger dexterity.

Pulse Ox alarm only works if your oxygen levels drop below whatever number you set for the alarm.
If you don't desat..alarm won't trigger.

Catalytic wrote:Taping the mask on hasn't helped thus far. Apparently I'm quite adept at removing tape in my sleep, too I'm about ready to try duct tape wrapped around my head a few times, but I don't relish trying to get that goo it leaves behind out of my hair.

I do have a pulse oximeter (CM50whatever) with an alarm, I'll give that a go.

Superglue your thumbs to your forefingers?

Pugsy wrote:I think the "alarm" on the S9 for large leak is only on the VPAP model and not available on the Autoset.
It's not the greatest of alarms either.

About the only thing I can think of is to make it more difficult for you to remove the mask during the night.
Some tape in a few strategic places over the straps maybe...hopefully the removal of the tape might wake you up enough to stop the removal of the mask.
Some people have worn mittens to bed to try to limit finger dexterity.

Pulse Ox alarm only works if your oxygen levels drop below whatever number you set for the alarm.
If you don't desat..alarm won't trigger.

Yes! It will alarm when your heart rate raises. Just try it. In fact, I usually have to wait a few minutes before taping it to the finger when I first get in bed becauuse I have to wait for my heart rate to drop below the 73 threshold or it will beep.

Loreena wrote: Yes! It will alarm when your heart rate raises. Just try it. In fact, I usually have to wait a few minutes before taping it to the finger when I first get in bed becauuse I have to wait for my heart rate to drop below the 73 threshold or it will beep.

Okay, so it will alarm if heart rate increases or oxygen level decrease per whatever alarm setting you set.
If there is no significant change to the alarm parameters...no alarm will go off.
My point is that not everyone will have significant changes to trigger the alarm.
Not everyone experiences significant desats or pulse increases with apnea events.
And where to draw the line for the alarm??? Some changes in oxygen and pulse are normal..set it too sensitive and you wake up all night from the alarm and that's not good.

It's worth a try though.

Pugsy wrote:

Loreena wrote: Yes! It will alarm when your heart rate raises. Just try it. In fact, I usually have to wait a few minutes before taping it to the finger when I first get in bed becauuse I have to wait for my heart rate to drop below the 73 threshold or it will beep.

Okay, so it will alarm if heart rate increases or oxygen level decrease per whatever alarm setting you set.
If there is no significant change to the alarm parameters...no alarm will go off.
My point is that not everyone will have significant changes to trigger the alarm.
Not everyone experiences significant desats or pulse increases with apnea events.
And where to draw the line for the alarm??? Some changes in oxygen and pulse are normal..set it too sensitive and you wake up all night from the alarm and that's not good.

It's worth a try though.

Excellent points!

Here's my workaround:

First, I found out my resting heart rate, either sitting or lying in bed. Then I experimented a while to find out how much my heart rate would raise according to moderate moving around. Then I settled on 73. If I set it too much higher than that, when the alarm went off, my heart was beating too fast, I felt. But really, what a person's AHI is usually is going to be the key. Since mine is usually below 1, the 73 setting works for me.

I've found the applications are limitless:

Sometimes I'll wake up too early with painful aerophagia and I'll want to lie there without the mask for a while to let the air escape from my body before putting the mask back on. If I fall asleep before putting the mask back on, the first event will wake me up. If the event is not significant to raise the heart rate (since that will rise way before the drop in O2), I'm not much hurt by it (for me!). But usually a 6-second apnea will start the heart rate over 73.

Sometimes I don't want to go to bed but merely listen to TV at night and close my eyes in the chair. If I fall asleep, the alarm triggers and then I know I have to go to bed.

If I want to shut my eyes in the car on a long trip (when I'm the passenger), the first event will wake me and then I have to force myself to stay awake till we get to where we are going.

Also, when I wanted to find out if I had events while sleeping upright in the lazyboy without the cpap, I was sorely disappointed when I found out that indeed, I did, as the alarm went off. That was a huge let-down for me. Still trying to get over that one.

Catalytic wrote:I keep taking my mask off while I'm sleeping, and it's bugging the crap out of me. I WANT to be 100% compliant, but I'm thwarting myself. I have searched and searched and can't seem to find a definitive answer...does the S9 AutoSet have an alarm for this situation or not? I have gone through the clinician menu about 100 times and I am not seeing anything about it.

This thread seems to say both. (And no, I do NOT hear the machine blowing freely when I am asleep, nor has apnea ever woken me up (at least, not enough I remember it), so I would *really* like if I could turn an alarm on that would wake me up when I take the damn mask off, sigh)

The S9 Autoset don't have alarms except for reminders. Waiting for the Pulse Oximeter to sound an alarm might take too long. Why don't you tape the two mask latches of the FlexiShit #431? You can thread the left headgear strap tru the closed loop instead of the hook, staple with a stapler the Velcros all around the mask and also cover with tape the "easy pull strap opener" on the right side. Shortly, make the mask hard to remove. The #431 and #43 are built with heavy frame and can take lots of force to remove them if the latches are closed tight.

Loreena wrote: Also, when I wanted to find out if I had events while sleeping upright in the lazyboy without the cpap, I was sorely disappointed when I found out that indeed, I did, as the alarm went off. That was a huge let-down for me. Still trying to get over that one.

Yeah, I thought I could hopefully prevent events if I would just stay sort of upright. Didn't work for me either and I didn't need the pulse ox alarm to tell me it wasn't a good idea.
I had the tell tale sign of snoring so bad it woke me up and my husband was sitting over in his chair laughing at me and informed me that I did indeed stop breathing briefly.

My sleep is so fragile anyway that I don't want to risk adding an alarm into things. I have discovered that how I feel the next day is directly related to awakenings during the night.
Fortunately my times that I have removed my mask during the night and not realized it are rare but if they weren't....I think I would still rather try to prevent the removal instead of relying on an alarm because of the possibility of frequent awakenings.
It would take considerable fine tuning of the alarm parameters to limit the awakenings to just the essential changes.
Now if my sleep wasn't so fragile to start with...maybe a different story.

My machines do have alarms...but they aren't very loud and I have slept through them for several minutes (like when hose comes off the mask) but eventually they do wake me up.

Pugsy wrote:[
My sleep is so fragile anyway that I don't want to risk adding an alarm into things.

Yeah, see that's the thing. You have to decide whether you can do it or not. Thankfully, the process has worked for me. But I can see it being a problem for some people.

Loreena wrote:Yeah, see that's the thing. You have to decide whether you can do it or not. Thankfully, the process has worked for me. But I can see it being a problem for some people.

Thankfully I don't have to make that choice. Mask removal during sleep is very rare for me and not worth the effort IMHO.
Dozing off during the day..fairly rare unless I have had a bad night in general (short hours, ill, or stupid pets) so again not worth the effort for me.

Besides...having one more thing attached to me during the night is NOT high on my list of things I want to do.
I am the queen of "less is better". If I could tape my nasal pillows to my nose and not have anything else attached to me...that would be what I would call "heaven" since I can't do without the darn mask.
That's why I like the Tap Pap..only have to deal with the mouth guard and I have been toying with the idea of a bit of tape and no mouth guard. I eventually will get around to at least trying it since I can safely do it without blocking the vent.