How difficult to adapt to asv

[SeekSleep]

I can now say I personally know some of the answers to my questions. The DME had to order the S9 adapt machine in as they didn't have any on hand. They issued it to me yesterday, which was perfect timing being as how it was a 4 day weekend for me (Last of my Furlough days for the year) I'm quite pleased with the results:

I was worried as to whether or not there was still room for improvement being as how the Bipap had such a significant improvement on my quality of life. The answer albeit based on only one night is a big YES. I'm again feeling an almost "HIGH" feeling better than I ever remember feeling upon waking.

Regarding how hard it will be to adapt, It's going to take a bit, but I'm not worried about it now. It took a hour or so to fall asleep because of the ramp up thing, but the pressure doesn't seem to go as high as it did in the sleep lab and I only had to tighten my mask a little over what it already was. The pressure on start up is lower, 8 I believe vs the 11 my Bipap was set at for EPAP. This made it feel a little like I was suffocating at first, but by the end of the night it was pretty much feeling okay. I'm sure I'll get used to that quickly.

The S9 has a different sound to it than the Respironics machine did. Sound level seems about the same, but the respironics noise was a little less obtrusive. It was more a simple fan white noise type thing where the S9 has more of a combination of noise type thing. It's not enough to keep my awake I don't think though.

Finally, while in my opinion how you feel is the real proof of the pudding, there are the numbers. I used the BIPAP 110 days and managed to get an AHI under 5 10 times with the best being 2.97. My average was over 10, average CA 7.9 and I had 16 days where my numbers were over 15. Last night was 0.2

Time will tell, but this seems to be a good fit for me.

[NateS]

I can now say I personally know some of the answers to my questions. The DME had to order the S9 adapt machine in as they didn't have any on hand. They issued it to me yesterday, which was perfect timing being as how it was a 4 day weekend for me (Last of my Furlough days for the year) I'm quite pleased with the results:

I was worried as to whether or not there was still room for improvement being as how the Bipap had such a significant improvement on my quality of life. The answer albeit based on only one night is a big YES. I'm again feeling an almost "HIGH" feeling better than I ever remember feeling upon waking.

Regarding how hard it will be to adapt, It's going to take a bit, but I'm not worried about it now. It took a hour or so to fall asleep because of the ramp up thing, but the pressure doesn't seem to go as high as it did in the sleep lab and I only had to tighten my mask a little over what it already was. The pressure on start up is lower, 8 I believe vs the 11 my Bipap was set at for EPAP. This made it feel a little like I was suffocating at first, but by the end of the night it was pretty much feeling okay. I'm sure I'll get used to that quickly.

The S9 has a different sound to it than the Respironics machine did. Sound level seems about the same, but the respironics noise was a little less obtrusive. It was more a simple fan white noise type thing where the S9 has more of a combination of noise type thing. It's not enough to keep my awake I don't think though.

Finally, while in my opinion how you feel is the real proof of the pudding, there are the numbers. I used the BIPAP 110 days and managed to get an AHI under 5 10 times with the best being 2.97. My average was over 10, average CA 7.9 and I had 16 days where my numbers were over 15. Last night was 0.2

Time will tell, but this seems to be a good fit for me.

That's wonderful news!

Congratulations!

Best wishes, Nate

[SeekSleep]

Thanks for the encouragement Nate. I'm pretty much doing a happy dance today. I did wake up about 5 times last night during the 9.6 hours I was on the machine. Two of those times I have no idea why I woke up, the other 3 had nothing to do with sleep apnea, but instead because I have two old dogs one of which had some stomach issues last night. She kept needing to go out.

This machine has sort of ruined my apnea treatment routine. As I often do, I downloaded the data card into sleephead, but this time the only thing I saw wrong was that the DME set the clock wrong on my machine. It was an hour and 6 minutes behind the actual time. It was also set so I could only see usage time on the machine itself rather than My AHI. Easily resolved thanks to the information available on these forums. As for analyzing the Sleepyhead readouts, it would appear I breathed in, and out, on a very regular basis. Kind of takes the fun out of trying to figure out whats going on. Guess I'm going to have to find a new hobby now.

[JohnBFisher]

Glad to see you are making such progress. Hopefully you'll find (as most of us have) that as your body adjusts to the therapy your AHI value will improve. This is not to say that you won't have bad nights occasionally. We just want them to be less frequent and the good nights more frequent.

So, three cheers for your progress. A lot of hard work and persistence is starting to pay off. Keep up the good work.

[Zen Knitter]

SeekSleep, your last post had me laughing and doing the happy dance with you! Congratulations on your new machine and quick adaptation. You might want to try a white noise machine, ( I use one from RadioShack) from the days of night work. It makes all the difference in the world. I love it that you need a new hobby! I think that is how life should be! Congrats.

[SeekSleep]

Once again, thanks everyone for the encouragement, support, and great ideas. When I started this, I kind of thought the sleep apnea thing was a scam, and I had pretty much gotten used to the headaches, and being tired all the time. I had a lot of little routines I would go through to keep myself awake, and did the three alarm clock thing to wake myself up. First clock right by the bed, number two would go off two minutes later and I had to stretch to reach it, the third one again 2 minutes after #2 and I had to get up and walk across the room to reach it. I was just one of those things I had to do to make sure I made it to work. Once going, I found I could function pretty well, unless I was to lay down or something whereupon I would instantly be out like a light and noise etc didn't bother me. I even fell asleep once during a nerve conduction study on my arm where they were shocking me, it totally blew the doctors mind. I sought help finally after nagging from the wife, a anesthesiologist, and even a desk clerk at a motel who said the people in the room next door complained about the snoring, and mentioned I appeared to have bad sleep apnea. If you asked me then though I really didn’t think I was that tired. I was pretty much used to it just being the way things are.

Now that I'm not totally exhausted, the relatively quiet noise of the machine was bothering me, but I solved that by drilling a hole in the back of my bedside nightstand and now keep the machine in a drawer where I can't even hear it. I am going to have to order an 8 foot hose or extension now as it's a little short for me when I roll over. For both nights I’ve used the ASV machine so far, it's been quite a bit harder to initially get to sleep than it was with the BIPAP, but I'm sure I'll quickly adapt to that. The way I feel when I wake up is fantastic, and my numbers are as good as they can get. Night one on the ASV I had two hypopnea's, one of which I know was during the period I wasn't asleep yet. Last nights AHI was 0 which is neat, especially since I can feel it, and don’t need to look at the machines numbers to tell things are dialed in about perfect. It sounds strange to say, but I find it to be quite refreshing that I sometimes have difficulty falling asleep. It’s a whole lot better than fighting to stay awake on a continuous basis.

Finally, show me now being a believer in the whole sleep apnea thing being a real medical problem. Treatment, although somewhat of a pain in the tush is one of those things that can make a real difference in quality of life. The only issue I really need to work now is my mask, as the mirage Quattro seems to seal better than anything else I tried, but it trashes my nose, and it makes the area below my eyes all puffy and swollen when I wake up. A couple of the others I used during my trial period didn’t do that, but they all leaked at the bridge of my nose and blew air into my eyes. Once I find the right mask life should be about as good as it gets.

[oak]

Once I find the right mask life should be about as good as it gets.

I very much enjoyed reading your post, seeksleep. I wish you the best of luck in your journey to mask-Nirvana

[Sir NoddinOff]

SeekSleep: Your are evidently a real problem solver and seem to almost revel in CPAP/ASV challenges and successfully overcoming them. I don't have any doubts that you'll have good news to report to us in the upcoming months.

[SeekSleep]

SeekSleep: Your are evidently a real problem solver and seem to almost revel in CPAP/ASV challenges and successfully overcoming them. I don't have any doubts that you'll have good news to report to us in the upcoming months.

Again, thanks to all for the positive support. You guys make this easy with support, and more great information than I could have possibly imagined when first looking in to this issue. As for good news in the future, I'd say it's already good news. I'm calling my battle with Apnea a success, albeit needing a little fine tuning. Thanks to the help from this board I was able to help guide the medical personnel in the right direction to where I now feel great. Without the prodding, the doc would have had me feeling good, just not as good as was possible with fine tuning.

As for problem solving, and reveling in the CPAP challenge, somehow in my early years I learned to not see life as full of "Problems", simply challenges, virtually all of which are surmountable with a positive approach. That approach has served me well in life with both my personal and employment endeavors. Interestingly, while I've dealt with the symptoms of sleep apnea virtually all my adult life, I never knew, or understood where the real problem was. When I finally started on the BIPAP, and learned how much better it was possible to feel I got pretty exuberant. It felt almost like winning the lottery.

Finally, it appears the super low AHI isn't guaranteed. Last night I experienced a whopping 3.2. Seems I had a 20 minute or so period of what appears to be OSA breathing. As others have mentioned, this ridiculously expensive machine either can't tell the difference, or simply wants to keep a secret. I woke up feeling great however, so all is good. Obviously I have no intention of messing with any settings for awhile if ever.