Good Riddance ASV

[sn00zin]

A bit of history first. 7 years ago, I went in for my first sleep study. I expected that I would complete the study, have a DME contact me that afternoon, and be sleeping soundly with my new equipment that night. Right.
Two more sleep-less studies, many reminder calls to the doctor and a year later, finally, the doctor proscribes a VPAP Auto Servo Ventilation machine for me. He showed me on the charts one instance of what "could be" Cheyne-Stokes respirations. I think he may have just given me the ASV machine out of frustration from the hour or two that I actually slept during the studies.
ASV machines make matters difficult because they tend to blow out the seals on the seals of a full face mask because the pressure is constantly and abruptly changing. You have to really cinch down the straps on the mask to get it to last through the night.
I finally settled on using nasal pillows with because they don't have nearly the problems of the full face mask. One problem with the nasal pillows on the Resmed S8 VPAP ASV is that it doesn't have a calibration setting for that one. I was instructed by the DME to calibrate the machine with the full face mask, then switch after that.
This has been working for a number of years, until I started noticing that my blood pressure readings were the highest of the day when I first woke up, and that sometimes I would wake up with the machine in a mode where it was cycling at very short, low pressure breath cycles that were actually suffocating me more than it was helping at all.
I had the DME check the calibration of the machine, and wrote to ResMed customer service to see if there was a software update for it to support the Swift mask. The machine checked out okay, and ResMed's response was that they don't support it any more. It's a $5500 boat anchor. (if you've ever lifted one of these, you'd know what I mean). Maybe the newer ASV machines are better, but it's algorithm seemed crude at best when it tried to enforce its own breathing rules on a Yoga practitioner who likes to take long breaths like me.
I was able to get the Resmed S10 Autoset yesterday, and had the best night of sleep in a long time. I had to use an alarm to wake up, and didn't feel like taking off the mask for a while after that. Sure, the S10 doesn't kick in and blow out central apneas immediately, but it doesn't blow out mask seals, either. The Expiratory Pressure Relief feature is very similar to the ASV during exhale cycle, but gentler. I've got accessible statistics, too, now that I didn't have before. And the reduced size and weight are going to be big plusses for traveling.
As long as Central Apneas don't become an issue, this is going to be a great change.

[Wulfman...]

Get the "Sleepyhead" software and monitor your therapy with that.


Den

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[sn00zin]

Yep. Thats what I'm doing next.