Waiting for CPAP

I was diagnosed with OSA just this past Friday. I have no clue as to what I am going to be looking forward to now. But I am eager to be able to have my grand babies again. I am a 41 y/o f with type 2 diabetes, on meds fora high pulse, and also have had restless leg for about 5 years now. I am waiting for my ME to find out if my insurance will cover the machine I had a very good nights sleep the night of my titration and am so looking forward to having many more to come!!! I would appreciate any info that anyone can give me. Thank You in advance.

Sorry forgot to login. This is my post.

Hi, and welcome... Suggest you begin by reading the link below - lots of great information... then come back to this thread with any questions you might have and we'll try to answer them.

http://maskarrayed.wordpress.com/what-y ... me-part-i/

Well I just found out that my insurance does not cover any ME at all. I do not know what to do know. I am very lost I guess I will have to live with it. Thanks for the help.

NoSleep4Nana wrote:Well I just found out that my insurance does not cover any ME at all. I do not know what to do know. I am very lost I guess I will have to live with it. Thanks for the help.

No you don't. There are plenty of secondhand machines available. Not using the therapy ups your risk of stroke, heart attack and dementia besides making you live completely miserable.
If you go the route of regular brick and mortar DME (durable medical equipment) it will cost you about $2000, online about half that. Do you think your life is worth that? Do you want to see your grandchildren get married?

There are lots of slightly used machines out there... I know I bought one from a member here 3 years ago... try secondwind.com or pm member STLMark, he can usually find an out of the box machine for not so many $$$$$$. My insurance didn't pay for a machine either and when I started out I had no money.. so had a few garage sales, sold some useless stuff and I did it.

Will your pocketbook allow you to pay for a machine yourself?

There are ways to get a good machine without having to rob a bank.
There are also ways to get masks.

I have found a used one from my pharmacy that I will be purchasing for now. But as soon as we are able to I will purchase a new one. I got my titration study back also and would like to have some help interpreting it if possible.

Polysomnography for CPAP/BIPAP Titration


Sleep Staging: The patient was studied from 22:18:22 to 5:57:22. Sleep was initiated in 16.5 minutes. REM latency was 89.5 minutes. Total time in bed was 459 minutes.Total sleep was 377.5 minutes. Sleep efficiency was 85.9%. There were 24 awakenings. Wake after sleep onset was 65 minutes. With regard to sleep stages, there was 11.5% stage 1, 50.6% stage 2, 7.5 stage 3, and 0.0% stage 4 and 30.3% REM.

Respiratory: There was a total of 24 obstructive disordered breathing events. The lowest apnea hypopnea index was 0 per hour, the supine index was 5.7 events per hour and the lateral index was 0.8 events per hour. There was 5 apneas, 1 obstructive apnea with a mean duration of 12.0 seconds and a maximum duration of 12.0 seconds, 1 mixwd apnea with a mean duration of 1.0 seconds, and a maximum duration of 15.4 seconds, and 3 central apneas with a mean duration of 13.3 seconds and a maximum duration of 18.1 seconds. There were 19 partial apneas with a mean duration of 17.6 and a maximum duration of 27.3 seconds.

Baseline SAO2during sleep was 92.3% and the low was 87.0%. There were 22 desaturations of below 90%.The SAO2 remained below 89.0% for 1.1 minutes throughout the study.


Periodic Limb Movements: There were 4 PLM for an index of 0.6 per hour, 2 of which caused EEG arousals.



EEG: There were no epileptiform features. There were a total of 99 EEG arousals. There were 5 arousals associated with apneas and partial apneas, 2 arousals associated with PLMS, 16 arousals associated with snoring, and 70 arousals associated without a known cause.


Cardiac: The basal heart rate was 73 bpm.There were no cardiographic abnormalities.

At the end of the study, was there a recommendation for CPAP at a certain pressure? example: cpap at 12 cm H2O?

RandyJ wrote:At the end of the study, was there a recommendation for CPAP at a certain pressure? example: cpap at 12 cm H2O?

Yes there was it is CPAP 10cm H2O.

What brand and model machine will you be getting from the pharmacy?

I get my machine tomorrow. I am so ready to start feeling better again and my husband is also. I feel bad for putting him thru so much in the last 3 or 4 years because of my problems. I am ready to be a couple again.

There is a lower cost option -- lose some weight. At 41 and to have type 2 diabetes is an absolutely terrible situation. Losing limbs, going blind, having failed kidneys and all the other suffering resulting from diabetes is far worse than the OSA.

Hopefully you will get a cpap machine, but at the end of the day it's the underling cause that needs fixing, not the symptom. And a cpap will do nothing to help fix that.

Being overweight is not a CAUSE of OSA, only a 'marker' (accompanying symptom) in many cases and many OSA patients are thin... tho' some may put on weight following diagnosis. I'm sure she's well aware of needing to lose and probably doesn't need reminding of dire consequences.

Losing weight--easier said than done!
I hate those obnoxious thin people who think you can snap your fingers and lose weight.