Changing Pressure on my Sefam

[Trinity]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone else had the same experience.

I went to a sleep clinic to get diagnosed for sleep apnea. They sold me a Sefam machine, inclusive of consultations.

However, they do not allow me access to my pressure. I have to plead with them to change it, which has been making ot very hard for me to get used to the machine given that I am a light sleeper.

Do clinics usually stop people from changing their pressure? And is there a way to unlock the machine?

Thanks in advance.

[zonker]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone else had the same experience.

I went to a sleep clinic to get diagnosed for sleep apnea. They sold me a Sefam machine, inclusive of consultations.

However, they do not allow me access to my pressure. I have to plead with them to change it, which has been making ot very hard for me to get used to the machine given that I am a light sleeper.

Do clinics usually stop people from changing their pressure? And is there a way to unlock the machine?

Thanks in advance.

in case you miss it, rick blaine (who resides in UK) answered in the other thread after you posted this-

viewtopic/t187156/Newlydiagnosed-in-the ... -help.html

good luck!

[Miss Emerita]

You can request a clinician's manual by following this link and sending an email per the instructions:

https://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap- ... tup-manual

(Apnea Board is another apnea forum.) Be sure the make and model of your machine is on the list (scroll way down to find the Sefam machines) and be sure to provide that information in your email.

Meanwhile, see whether this works for your machine:

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/16375 ... =12#manual

As I understand it, you press the ramp and the touch key simultaneously to enter the clinician menu, which includes pressure settings.

While many of us change our pressure settings on our own, we think it's important to do so in light of CPAP data. Unfortunately your machine is not compatible with the Oscar software, and as far as I know, it isn't compatible with sleepHQ either. What kind of information is guiding your requests for changes to your settings?

[Trinity]

Thank you, I'll have a look.

I have CFS, and if I get even one night where I can't sleep, I am then unable to function.

The CPAP is currently making my sleep much worse, I wake up not being able to breathe when the pressure is at max. They are taking the approach of, "Let's start high and then lower slowly", which means I get several nights of not sleeping, and then I can't work.

I understand this is the approach you might take with someone who doesn't have a complication such as CFS, but I do. This doesn't seem to go in. It's like prescribing exercise to someone like me because it's generally healthy. It isn't for me. Everything has to be paced. This includes a therapy that is causing more side effects than it's curing. So I need to start slow and then increase as I get used to it. I can't keep just pressing the ramp button every time it's too much, if I have woken up to do that, it's too late.

[ChicagoGranny]

"Let's start high and then lower slowly"

Are they idiots? In a sleep lab titration, they start with low pressure. They only increase the pressure when the lower pressure is not preventing events.

Which Sefam machine model do you have?

[chunkyfrog]

Tsk, tsk.
Is anybody trying to defend the NHS now?
I would not.

[Trinity]

"Let's start high and then lower slowly"

Are they idiots? In a sleep lab titration, they start with low pressure. They only increase the pressure when the lower pressure is not preventing events.

Which Sefam machine model do you have?

It's this https://www.thebettersleepclinic.co.uk/ ... ap-machine

Somebody already sent me a link to see if I can get clinician access. The clinic did now set the pressure to a very low value though (ramp starts at 4 and ends at 6), it's just that it's rather slow to get them to change it, as I have to wait for a day or two, and it took a few asks before they lowered it. I had it during the holidays at that setting.

Also yesterday I tried it again, and EVERY single time I was drifting to sleep my body just woke me up rather abruptly. For what I could tell, every time it happened I felt I could not exhale. The Sefam is an APAP and it does lower pressure when exhaling, when awake it is not a problem and it works fine and I don't feel like I am suffocating. It just seems that when I am about to sleep my body just goes, "What the hell?" and wakes me up.

I take off the mask and that stops.

All the while my AHI stays below 1, and yesterday even when that was happening it remained at 0.

I managed to do a 2 or 3 nights with it on all night and the AHI was at around 0.5.

Yet I wake up all the time and last time was the worst, I never got jolted out of sleep by the CPAP like that my chest started to hurt, and for a treatment that is supposed to take the pressure off your heart it didn't seem like it.

I am booking a new consultation with all this information with the clinic, let's see what they say, but I am wondering if maybe I just don't have strong lungs and when I fall asleep and try to exhale, maybe the machine thinks I am actually having an event and instead of letting me exhale it's pushing air in. This is all conjecture.

[ChicagoGranny]

I managed to do a 2 or 3 nights with it on all night and the AHI was at around 0.5.

That's excellent for anyone, especially a new user.

Yet I wake up all the time

That's not good. Do you have a feel for how often you awaken? Whether a sleep apnea patient or a normal breather, several awakenings per night is a normal amount as long as you fall back to sleep in a short time.

my chest started to hurt

Many experience some chest pain when first starting CPAP. Do you have any reason to believe you have heart issues?

The clinic did now set the pressure to a very low value though (ramp starts at 4 and ends at 6)

Can you get into the machine's menu on the display and see what the minimum and maximum pressure settings are?

[Trinity]

That's not good. Do you have a feel for how often you awaken? Whether a sleep apnea patient or a normal breather, several awakenings per night is a normal amount as long as you fall back to sleep in a short time.

It's always markedly worse with the CPAP machine, and last night it was the first time it was rather sudden and should not be feeling like I can't breathe properly. My watch shows much longer disruptions with the CPAP machine, whereas after I take it off they are much shorter and I am not always aware of them.

As to the pressure settings, I can't access them at all, but that's what the clinic set them up at, and 6 is what I see when I wake up. 4 is what I see when I turn it on, I have no reason to doubt that's what they set it up to I think the pressure is fine now, aside from when I am about to drift to sleep, as I explained earlier.

I have checked around this and other forums now, it seems there are several people who have a worse experience with Sefam. One of them said it feels like it goes into overdrive sometimes, another said that he wakes up a lot with it, when he didn't with a Philips one. Funny enough he wakes up around the time I do.

So I am trying again with yet a new mask tonight, but this will be the last try I do before the next consultation if it doesn't work. My holiday is ending and I cannot afford to not function at work. I am wondering about getting a ResMed now, but it's money, and this has been rather expensive already.