PolyWatch YH 600B

[FranckDG]

hi all,

It's been over a year since I had my home sleep study (followed by an on site sleep study) and started CPAP treatment. Since then my life has completely changed, my brain works the way it used to and I am able to run again (ran my first half-marathon this last week-end!). With all that running I have lost quite a bit of weight and I have been thinking about having another home study to see if I have improved. The problem is that between the doctor appointments and the study itself, I am going to spend probably a total of $300-$400. Also when I did the tests last year, even though I asked I really wasn't able to get a straight answer on how much worse my OSA was in supine position, etc... I was not too happy with the process in general.

So now I found this device on the internet: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/PolyWatc ... 92593.html. While not cheap, the prospect of doing as many home studies as I want with the parameters I choose sounds great. For example, I can try sleeping on a side with one of these special pillows and see what the results are. I can see of course if my weight loss is helping, try alternative therapies and see if they help, etc... Basically, I can see myself running a series of tests at first then test myself once a month to see if there is any change and try to make sense of it all. (maybe I'm just losing my time and money but at least I'll know it for sure!)

Anyway... I wanted to ask people on this forum if they had any experience using this device (or a similar device) and if they recommend it (or please recommend another device if better). Also would this give me the results I need, i.e. is this really comparable to the standard US home test?

thanks!

[Diamondminek]

since you have an auto you can do some basic testing your self - leave the setting wide open, see what happens. if the pressure goes up, because you are having events, you still have apnoea. if it stays at 4, maybe you dont (or maybe 4 is enough to treat you). worth a shot before spending that kind of money. you might find you can use a lower pressure range with your weight loss, even if it hasnt cured the apnoea all together.
if you get this machine, i wouldnt plan to test too often - since that means untreated apnoea for a night, so it doesnt seem worth loosing a regular amount of sleep to test out different things - that really arent as good as cpap anyway. and possibly using sleepyhead you could see if any of these things help by seeing if your pressure needs stay lower, which would suggest that it helps.

[rick blaine]

I'm not sure if you checked out all the photographs in the AliExpress website sales presentation, but the device package includes a cannula - the clear plastic tube thing (with, in this case, two prongs at one end) that you stick up your nose.

Whether you did, or whether you didn't - how are you going to wear a mask with the cannula in place? And what will be the extent of the machine's readings if you don't use the cannula?

As for the chest tube and resps - data compatible machines give you the same information (if you use Sleepyhead, etc).

Which leaves pulse-ox. And, it seems to me, you can buy a separate 'stand-alone' pulse-ox reader for a lot less than $882.

[FranckDG]

since you have an auto you can do some basic testing your self - leave the setting wide open, see what happens. if the pressure goes up, because you are having events, you still have apnoea. if it stays at 4, maybe you dont (or maybe 4 is enough to treat you). worth a shot before spending that kind of money. you might find you can use a lower pressure range with your weight loss, even if it hasnt cured the apnoea all together.
if you get this machine, i wouldnt plan to test too often - since that means untreated apnoea for a night, so it doesn't seem worth loosing a regular amount of sleep to test out different things - that really arent as good as cpap anyway. and possibly using sleepyhead you could see if any of these things help by seeing if your pressure needs stay lower, which would suggest that it helps.

I actually lowered the pressure on my machine already from 14 down to 10 then 8. I am still below 0.5 AHI consistently. I have been thinking about lowering the pressure to 4 for a try.. Maybe I'll do that first but I'm not sure how to read the results to get an idea of what my real AHI would be. In my original diagnosis, I had an AHI of 17.7 but my oxygen level dropped to 85% (one time only which is also why I want to re-test... the doctor wasn't sure if it was a fluke or not) and that was the bigger concern.

And yes I wouldn't be doing this very often but having a check once in while seems like a good idea.

[FranckDG]

I'm not sure if you checked out all the photographs in the AliExpress website sales presentation, but the device package includes a cannula - the clear plastic tube thing (with, in this case, two prongs at one end) that you stick up your nose.

Whether you did, or whether you didn't - how are you going to wear a mask with the cannula in place? And what will be the extent of the machine's readings if you don't use the cannula?

As for the chest tube and resps - data compatible machines give you the same information (if you use Sleepyhead, etc).

Which leaves pulse-ox. And, it seems to me, you can buy a separate 'stand-alone' pulse-ox reader for a lot less than $882.

Yes I saw that. I wouldn't be wearing the mask when I do the test. So you think I should just get the pulse-ox? But how would I determine my real AHI with Sleepyhead using my CPAP machine?

[Pugsy]

But how would I determine my real AHI with Sleepyhead using my CPAP machine?

If by "real" you mean what the AHI would be without cpap therapy you can't. The AHI shown is what slips past the defenses.

If you reduce your pressure to 4 cm...there's still some therapy value at 4 cm so if the AHI is still very low we don't know if it's low because nothing happened or the 4 cm pressure was able to keep the airway open.
But you still might have an answer....if the AHI at 4 cm is higher than we want then you would know that cpap is still needed but at a lower pressure than when you first started.
Now if the AHI is low...that's when a person needs another sleep study without cpap to see if cpap is still needed or not.

Using an overnight pulse oximeter for peace of mind might be something to consider if you are going to want to check it every now and then. It's a lot cheaper option than the Polywatch.
Bear in mind that just because someone doesn't have oxygen level drops it doesn't mean that there isn't some sort of sleep apnea or sleep disordered breathing going on. I have a friend whose AHI was in the 60s but her oxygen levels never dropped below 94% during her diagnostic sleep study without cpap and that was in a lab.

If you are wanting a one time only pulse oximetry test...check with your DME...often they will do it for free or bill your insurance.
But you can buy your own pulse ox that will do a good job for $50 to $100 depending on how fancy you want to get with the features and then you can check your oxygen whenever and as often as you want to.

[rick blaine]

I was typing up something similar, when Pugsy posted.

If by "the real AHI" you mean the AHI you'd record if you weren't using a machine, then short of what is in effect a series of fresh sleep studies, one for every night you might try some different position, etc, I would suggest something unusual. Something which would be using a machine in a way it wasn't designed for.

Something which would give a close approximation to the "real" AHI.

Assuming you're using some kind of APAP, then set the minimum to 4.0 and the maximum to 4.5. That's as close as I know to having no machine at all.

Of course, in so doing, you would, in effect, be having a night with no support and no treatment at all. Why would you want to do that?

[FranckDG]

ok I guess I will try setting the machine to 4 and 4.5 and I'll look into getting an oxy meter. thanks!

[bwexler]

If I set my low pressure to 4 , I would have trouble breathing.
I need 6 or 7 minimum and my maximum often goes over 17.
I have no doubt that I am benefiting from my therapy. I do have a CMS 50i pulse ox, but only use it occasionally now. Especially when I need to do battle with insurance to convince them to pay for something. My current insurance doesn't care. They only rent DME perpetually, never own it.
I have determined I should use PAP therapy for the next 30 years, then reevaluate weather I still need it. Since I will be 71 later this month that seems like a good game plan. Midlife reevaluation.

[yaconsult]

The machine you linked to is designed to determine whether or not a person has sleep apnea. You already know that you have sleep apnea! Sleep apnea doesn't go away or get better - it gets treated. So there is no benefit to keep checking and confirming that you still have it. And every time that you sleep without your cpap, you do a little more damage to yourself. The test equipment doesn't treat you in the least.

Focus on your treatment. Get familiar with sleepyhead. Study your data. Experiment with settings if you feel that your results are less than optimal. Your machine records more useful, detailed data than what you linked to ever could.

[FranckDG]

@Pugsy, @Rick blaine,

I finally got around to try this last night. I set my machine to 4.6 maximum (the lowest it goes is 4.0 but for some reason it was hard to breathe at 4.0). I had a bad night but for unrelated reasons (a little bout of anxiety... maybe it was related after all:) So here are my SleepyHead results:

AHI: 2.51
Large Leak: 0.00%
Obstructive: 0.53%
Hypopnea: 0.66%
Pressure: Min: 4, Med 4.5, 95%: 4.6, Max: 4.6
EPAP: 4, 4, 4, 4
Minute Vent: 2.12, 6.88, 9.75, 18.25
Resp Rate: 4, 14.40, 18.80, 50.00
Flow Limit: 0,0,0.10,0.93
Leak Rate: 0,0,1.20,16.80
Snore: 0,0,0,0.12
Insp Time: 0.08, 2.00, 3.04, 9.68
Exp Time: 0.06, 2.14, 3.12, 5.46
Tidal Volume: 60, 460, 740, 1380
Total Time in Apnea: 00:05:52
Time over leak redline: 0%

When looking at the graph, my AHI spiked to 5 for about one hour but I'm pretty sure I was not really sleeping during that hour so I'm not sure what that means. Then later on when I was sleeping, it was a 3 for 45 mins and jumped to 4 for 15 mins. Other than that, it was between 0 and 1.

Also I have an up3 band that I use to track my sleep patterns and according to it, I got over one hour of deep sleep (only 5 mins of REM sleep but that was a bad night altogether).

So I think this is pretty encouraging overall even though there was some therapy involved... I am going to double down on my weight loss efforts and get retested in a while. I also re-measured the circumference of my neck and it's now 16" down from 17" when I was diagnosed so maybe this is the root cause of my sleep apnea.

[chunkyfrog]

Just a thought . . .
It sounds like therapy is already effective.
Other than curiosity and a fascination for gadgets, what is the objective of this?
Ones hobby should not risk impacting ones health--but that is just me.

[FranckDG]

Just a thought . . .
It sounds like therapy is already effective.
Other than curiosity and a fascination for gadgets, what is the objective of this?
Ones hobby should not risk impacting ones health--but that is just me.

The objective is to try to do everything I can to rid myself of sleep apnea without surgery. The CPAP machine has been a miracle for me honestly but if I have a shot at living without it and be back to normal, I want to take it. If I get to a point where I feel I can do that, then I would want to have some type of monitoring device to make sure it stays within acceptable bounds as I get older.