How Many People in the US use XPAP?

[MandoJohnny]

I have seen stats that 1 in 6 Americans may have SA, but that includes the folks not being treated for it. Has anyone seen credible stats on how many people, or what percentage of the general population, are actually using XPAP (CPAP, APAP, BiPAP, etc.) therapy? I am curious. I had never heard of it three months ago. Now I've been on it for a month and a half and have encoutered two other people who use it.

[Sinister_Girl]

Refer to Streaming CPAP and Sleep Apnea News "What you should know about sleep apnea" at the top of this page. It's a great article!

[MandoJohnny]

Thanks. I guess doing a little unscientific math on the numbers in that article, 18 million people have SA and 10 percent of them are getting treated for it, so that would be about 1.8 million. So, out of those, how many does anyone figure are on XPAP as opposed to other threatments? I would think the vast majority of them. So, would anyone here quibble with, say, 1.5 million people on XPAP in the US?

[Wulfman]

MJ,

Your post got me curious, so I did some searching. Came up with several links that listed (possible) number of apnea sufferers from 12 to 50 million. Couldn't find anything on the number of XPAP users. Most of the studies that were done to arrive at percentages of users who stayed with it and people who quit are mostly 5 or more years old. Personally, I don't think anybody has a CLUE! (or could even come close to guessing at)

Anyway, here's some reading material:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060608/nyfnsf02.html?.v=4

http://www1.wfubmc.edu/neuro/Diseases+a ... orders.htm

http://www.focusonhealthyaging.com/sleep_apnea.html

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/june13/apnea.html

http://www.sign.ac.uk/guidelines/fullte ... tion4.html


Best wishes,

Den

[Guest]

Maybe 1.5 million have been prescribed XPAP therapy, but that seems high. No way 1.5 million are actually using it. The compliance rate is dismal. I believe the figure for people sticking with XPAP therapy is less than 40%.

Then there's the issue of what constitutes "compliance". We'd all agree using cpap for every sleeping minute is the goal. But some doctors and insurance companies define compliance as using cpap an average of 4 hours a night/5 nights a week, which is kind of like being prescribed medicine and taking 1/2 the dose.

As far as treatments besides XPAP therapy, I don't know what other treatments have been proven to be successful in treating sleep apnea

[bluesky]

I have read several different articles about that. Seems like the typical estimate is 5% to 10%, most of which is untreated. With my experience with OSA diagnosis, it seems like many Drs. really don't understand it. Many drs. still seem to think only extremely obese people are prone to OSA. In my case I started using a P.A. several years ago that spent a lot of timne with his patients when they went to see him. He picked up on the symptoms right away and was after me for a year to have a sleep study done - After a year of hounding by he an my wife I finally had a study done, and no big surprise - I was diagfnosed with OSA. I knbow several people that have OSA, and they all had about the same experience I did - It was after they switched medical providers that they were diagnosed.