List the topic of the certified letter on the green envelope ("request to stop payment of DME for CPAP rental"). Send one to the DME and one to the insurance company, and give them each a copy of the other letter. A signed receipt of a letter is legally binding. Then, if your insurance company pays ...

One of the more dramatic results I have noticed from my increasing hours on auto cpap , aside from my longer and longer bouts of energy (hooray!), is that the swelling in my ankles has diminished dramatically. If I'm not mistaken, swollen ankles are an early sign of the heart struggling... The more ...

The best comparison I can make is the noise level of "2001: A Space Odyssey" when you hear his breathing in the mask (before he breathes faster at the end). I actually find it soothing, like a type of white noise. I have 2 suggestions: 1) Have you filled your humidifier up to the proper level, and s...

But I believe "irritability" is one of the definitive symptoms of sleep apnea, used by doctors to help diagnose the disease. My pulmonary sleep doctor told me, with my severe sleep apnea, that my experience was the equivalent of having someone shake me awake 99 times per hour (!) If you are like me,...

Hi Snamvar

My heart goes out to you and Mommaw, sounds very hard... I think plain old vanilla Sleep Apnea is hard enough to deal with! I hope both you are able to find some help with it!

Hopeful

Have I said before how nice it is to have this on-line community...?

Oops I guess I have!!

I'm having trouble with the software driver for the Infineer / Mako card reader through a USB port. I was able to get it to work on a Windows 2000 computer borrowed from a friend, but never on my XP even though it is supposed to work on this operating system. I'm running XP on a laptop. When I insta...

G-- forbid you should be more well-informed than they are! I had a similar experience with my pulmonary sleep doc. Good guy, and ultimately very supportive of the way I wanted my treatment to go, but boy, was he defensive! At least the good ones will admit they are driven in part by fear of lawsuits...

It is interesting that your end quote is "don't do mornings" because one of the things I am finding, after about 2 weeks on auto cpap with a Remstar auto with c-flex , is that I no longer am able to sleep in mornings -- even if I want to! I'm down for the count by 11:00 - 12:00 pm, and can't sleep m...

If I recall the little I know about this, it means you may be in a great deal of pain, awake as well as asleep. I think most of us on this forum really only know about sleep apnea. You may want to focus more on your fibromyalgia and pain management if you feel as if this is the reason you don't slee...

There has to be one doctor who would work with you to either give you a financial break on the sleep study, or give you an authorization for an auto cpap and allow you to collect data at home for later review by a sleep doctor. I think if you take the tack that you want to try it working with the do...

I was very moved by your story. There is nothing like wanting to contribute to the world and to your family and being prevented by a disease like sleep apnea. It sounds like you have the right equipment. Keep perservering and be patient. And let us know how you make out. As others have said, your sl...

Thanks for your interest and responses on this! I do indeed keep the Activa very, very loose -- almost ridiculously so. I essentially use the pressure itself to keep the mask on, as is documented here so well. The size of my particular face is such that, even without the headgear to keep it on and r...

HI all Every day I wake up brighter, eyes clearer, and life is good! Soon I will be positively chipper! My last post I was going in to the whole wrangle on fine-tuning which mask I like. (I'm using the remstar auto cpap with c-flex , with a c-flex level setting of 2, humidifier on 4). I have very sm...

I had trouble breathing out at 14. I can't imagine what it would be like at 18!

Don't feel bad -- that is a lot of air pressure to breathe out against!

C-flex seems to do a kind of "ramp" within each breath. Makes a big, big difference for me!

Good luck Mommaw and let us know what happens!