What software do I need to purchase

[Fafner]

On Friday, I exchange my Remstar Plus M Series CPAP with Cflex and humidifier with a Remstar PRO M Series. My DME was unable to tell me what the appropriate compatible software was and what the basic requirements of my home PC are to ensure that I can load and program and download the data. Can anyone advise?

I am three months into cpap therapy and not feeling significantly better. I still wake up groggy and foggy and feel sleepy in the afternoons. I have on the other hand lost 10 lbs, stopped snoring and manage to sleep with my mouth closed (previously a mouth breather while asleep). I have decided to celebrate those incremental improvements and seek more empirical data to see what is going on.

I am as in the past indebted to this Forum and the support and information that it makes available.

Phil (fafner)

[OutaSync]

You will need this package:

https://www.cpap.com/productpage-bundle.php?BundleID=64

It is well worth knowing what happens to you while you are sleeping.

Bev

[papdad]

http://www.cpap-supply.com/Articles.asp?ID=150

More info. -- Your profile still shows plus machine.
Best of luck, Norm

[rested gal]

Good job getting the Pro machine which (after you get the Encore Viewer software) can give you soooo much more information about your treatment now!

and manage to sleep with my mouth closed (previously a mouth breather while asleep).

Once you have the software and can look at the leak line on the "Daily Details" graph, you'll have a better idea whether mouth breathing might still be a recurring problem during the full relaxation of sleep.

Starting out the night and drifting off to sleep breathing only through your nose is no guarantee that massive mouth breathing might not start happening during sleep and most of the "treatment" be lost while you sleep oblivious to that going on. The software will be the first step to determining if that might still be occuring.

You're doing a good job, Fafner, at being very proactive about your own treatment. Good for you!

[turbosnore]

I envy you people. In finland you can buy the machine only if you have presciption.
I was lent one from the clinic for a long-term use.
I'm not sure if I could get myself the reader and SW, but I was told that adjusting
the pressure is forbidden.

[Babette]

I envy you people. In finland you can buy the machine only if you have presciption.
I was lent one from the clinic for a long-term use.
I'm not sure if I could get myself the reader and SW, but I was told that adjusting
the pressure is forbidden.

You can only buy a machine with a prescription in the US. If you buy it through standard channels; i.e., DME, online DME, doctor, etc.

If you buy it on Craigslist or other auction sites, well, just like buying anything on the black market, it's caveat emptor!

As for adjusting your pressure - to my knowledge, there are not police actions that will be taken if you adjust your own pressure. If you are interested in doing this, there are forum members here who can share with you the instructions for doing this with your machine.

I don't have your same machine, so I can't help there.

Cheers,
Barbara

[rested gal]

I'm not sure if I could get myself the reader and SW, but I was told that adjusting
the pressure is forbidden.

turbosnore, the Encore software doesn't work with ResMed machines. Encore works only with Respironics machines. Each manufacturer has its own proprietary software. However, even if you got ResMed's software and card reader for your machine, you would not get any useful info from it. Some ResMed machines do give full data, but your "Escape" model does not. The only thing your machine would show via software is "hours of use" -- compliance hours. The Escape doesn't record or show AHI or leak data.

Nevertheless, people can get perfectly good treatment from plain cpaps that give no information. Hope you're doing well.

If a person decides to adjust his own settings, it's not necessary to have software to do that. The pressure and other settings can be changed via the clinical menu on the machine itself, IF you know how to access the clinical menu.

For example, with ResMed machines....

To access the therapy setup menu (clinical menu) in your machine, hold these two buttons down together until you see "Welcome clinical" and then keep holding them down a few more seconds:

"Down" arrow button and right button

If you do decide to go into the setup menu, I'd suggest you have paper and pen handy. I wouldn't make any changes at all the first time you go through the clinical menu. I'd simply go all the way through it, writing down everything you see about each setting...every word, every symbol, every number. That way you'll have a record of all your original settings if you make changes later and find you want to go back to the way it was.

When going through the menu, you'll see the word "Change" in many of the settings windows. It's ok to press the left button under the word "Change" and to toggle (with the up/down arrow button) through the parameters, just to see what changes could be made.

The only way you can make a "Change" stick (automatically be saved) is if you press the left button under the word "Apply." If you don't want to make a change to a setting you've been poking around in, just be sure NOT to press the left button when the word "Apply" is sitting over the button.

In other words, pressing "Change" will not actually MAKE a change. It just lets you see what changes you could make if you wanted to. Pressing "Apply" is what makes a setting you're looking at actually be saved.

If you do explore the clinical menu, you can use the right button under the word "Exit" at any time to back out of whatever menu item you happen to be looking at. Exit works like a browser back arrow button while you're in the clinical menu. If you get lost in the menu tree and just want out of the whole thing, hitting the Exit button 4 times will let you be sure you've exited completely out of the clinical menu.

[Birddog]

I also want to add if you have a data compliant machine like i have the Resmed Autoset Vantage and you dont want to spend hundreds of dollars to review your data you can do what i do. I keep a log every morning when i get up i get into the clinical menu and log my HI,AI,AHI,pressure,Leak rates,hours of use,total hours and notes if i used sleeping pill,If i took off mask during night and had to put it back on.

I take this log and copy the pages and when i see my doctor,she has everything those fancy software packages have and notes too of how you slept and so forth. I just use a small notebook and get my data every day before noon when it disappears. Hope this helps.