help with machine styles - auto vs. manual?

[dougndoug]

hi,

after my first visit to sleep center, they said i need to come back for titration. i called back to ask if a return visit was really necessary, and they said something about if i can an automatic device, then they don't have to do titration, which i guess is measuring how much air pressure i need.

upon reading about popular devices, the most popular seemed to be resmed s9 autoset. on the mfg website it says it is "auto adjusting". i'm wondering if this is the "auto" kind, does this mean my 2nd visit to the sleep center is not needed? if the visit is only to measure my air pressure need, and the autoset machien does that for you, is this titration visit not required?

i need to find out the details of my results, but i think it is a more mild apnea that is caused by physical not mental obstruction.

thanks much

[HoseCrusher]

The machine you mentioned is an "auto" adjusting machine and will work well. With some care and by daily checking the data from the machine you should be able to dial things in.

[palerider]

on the mfg website it says it is "auto adjusting". i'm wondering if this is the "auto" kind

that, indeed, is what the 'auto' in AutoSet means... the same as the auto in my VPAP Auto

[Julie]

But it's not auto vs manual, it's auto vs straight cpap (which auto machines can also do, tho' plain cpaps don't do auto). It means that you set a range of pressure on the auto machine and then tweak it around to suit you and get better defined results and stats, whereas a single pressure Cpap ... just does the one pressure. Some people prefer it, I think most of us would rather use autos.

[dougndoug]

thanks for responses. the sleep center asked me to come for a second visit for titration/cpap fitting. if i get an auto machine, is this visit necessary?

[Julie]

Depends on what machine you get and what shape it's in... if you find a particular model (the #'s usually on the bottom - model, not serial), come here and ask about it, plus make sure you get the # of hrs used on the machine and that it wasn't used in a smoking household.

[Pugsy]

if i get an auto machine, is this visit necessary?

While it is indeed possible to figure out your own pressure needs using an auto adjusting pressure machine there are some advantages to using the titration sleep study.

1...they check for central apneas and while you may not have had any during the diagnostic sleep study....there is a small percentage of people who will develop central apneas as a response to cpap pressures.

2... if it is determined immediately that much higher pressures are needed than a regular cpap/apap machine can go to then they will do the bilevel pressure machine therapy and you won't have bought a machine that won't go high enough.

Now..that said..if playing the odds...chances of either 1 or 2 happening when someone has plain jane vanilla OSA is rather small but it's there.

So can it be done without having a formal sleep titration study? Sure it can. People do it all the time and some insurance companies actually prefer to do it that way to start with and save the titration studies in the lab for people who have problems. Are there situations where a formal titration study might be beneficial...sure there could be but is it absolutely critical that the only way to figure out a suitable pressure be found in the sleep lab? No, I don't think so. Besides, sometimes the in lab titration study doesn't always come up with the best pressure anyway. Mine didn't. I didn't sleep so great and they missed my optimal pressure.

If you educate yourself...get a full efficacy data machine and software and learn how to use the software and understand what you see (and it isn't all that difficult to learn) you can self titrate and unless you happen to have a problem and maybe have number 1 or 2 above....there's a good chance you will be successful doing it yourself.