Feedback please on Resmed "For Her" compared to your old pap

[emmagoldman44]

I am pretty happy with my Resmed Autosense 10 with one exception: when I get an obstruction, it often takes 10 - 12 seconds for the machine to do anything about it. I am a little too bleary to post my first sleepyhead shot, so I'll just describe it verbally: 3 or 4 seconds after there is no air flow, the pressure pulses begin. The pressure pulses go on for 6 - 7 seconds, during which time there is continued obstruction, but the pressure either stays flat or increases only minutely (for example, from 6.05 to 6.2). Finally, usually 11 seconds down the road, the pressure rises steeply (7-7.5) and the air flow resumes.

On one hand, you could say this is a successful episode of OA resolved by xPAP (definitely better than the 30 seconds or more of apnea in pre-treatment days )
The problem is, I have a sleep disorder, and I notice that these OA episodes often seem to wake me up prematurely.
I am thinking, perhaps the length of time I am straining for breath is too alarming and kicks me up to a lighter level of sleep... I tend to wake up 20 - 25 mins later. If so, and the For Her really does address this issues, I am considering it.

So now I am wondering if the "For Her" version performs as advertised, and my question to the community is:

Do you observe that you have shorter time spent in OA now that you have the For Her version compared to before?

[Wulfman...]

I am pretty happy with my Resmed Autosense 10 with one exception: when I get an obstruction, it often takes 10 - 12 seconds for the machine to do anything about it. I am a little too bleary to post my first sleepyhead shot, so I'll just describe it verbally: 3 or 4 seconds after there is no air flow, the pressure pulses begin. The pressure pulses go on for 6 - 7 seconds, during which time there is continued obstruction, but the pressure either stays flat or increases only minutely (for example, from 6.05 to 6.2). Finally, usually 11 seconds down the road, the pressure rises steeply (7-7.5) and the air flow resumes.

On one hand, you could say this is a successful episode of OA resolved by xPAP (definitely better than the 30 seconds or more of apnea in pre-treatment days )
The problem is, I have a sleep disorder, and I notice that these OA episodes often seem to wake me up prematurely.
I am thinking, perhaps the length of time I am straining for breath is too alarming and kicks me up to a lighter level of sleep... I tend to wake up 20 - 25 mins later. If so, and the For Her really does address this issues, I am considering it.

So now I am wondering if the "For Her" version performs as advertised, and my question to the community is:

Do you observe that you have shorter time spent in OA now that you have the For Her version compared to before?

Sounds "normal" to me.
I doubt if the "For Her" model would react any differently.


Den

.

[Pugsy]

I don't know that many forum members here have had a chance to use the new "for Her" apap mode to compare it to the old regular apap mode time in apnea.

Neither mode will respond to a random solo OA. They need to either have other obstructive stuff going or several OAs close together.
No machine will respond to an OA in the middle of the OA.

If you are wanting to better prevent those OAs from happening you have to better hold the airway open to start with...more minimum pressure when in auto mode. It's better to prevent something (and easier) than it is to try to fix something after the fact.

[palerider]

I am pretty happy with my Resmed Autosense 10 with one exception: when I get an obstruction, it often takes 10 - 12 seconds for the machine to do anything about it. I am a little too bleary to post my first sleepyhead shot, so I'll just describe it verbally: 3 or 4 seconds after there is no air flow, the pressure pulses begin. The pressure pulses go on for 6 - 7 seconds, during which time there is continued obstruction, but the pressure either stays flat or increases only minutely (for example, from 6.05 to 6.2). Finally, usually 11 seconds down the road, the pressure rises steeply (7-7.5) and the air flow resumes.

your assumptions about how machines should, and do operate, is wrong.

first, it takes 10 seconds for any breathing abnormality to be counted, that's just the way the whole system works.

second, during that time period, the machine is testing to see whether or not your airway is open or closed, if it's open, then NO pressure increase is warranted, because more pressure won't fix a central apnea.

third, if the airway is closed, then a pressure increase will happen *AFTER* breathing resumes, because in some instances more pressure would be like leaning into a door that opens towards you, it only causes the blockage to be worse.

if you're having too many events at lower pressure, then you need to raise your minimum.

[cpapjan]

I have only 1 week on my Airsense10 Autoset for Her and all I can say is that I LOVE it...I am much more comfortable throughout the night with it than my S9 Autoset. I definitely see an improvement in the length of time I am in "apnea". It is much more sensitive to flow limitations than the S9 and thereby preventing apneas from happening in the first place. Hope this helps!

If you get a chance, can you please respond to my post, "Airsense 10 Autoset"...I would greatly appreciate it.

[Guest56]

ResMed for her is the best mask, well nasal pillows I've ever tried. It fits so much better.. However I keep getting an alarm with message saying low pressure. Any ideas on that message, I see my Dr up coming week. Thanks in advance

[palerider]

Any ideas

create an account, post a coherent message with some actual information in it.

[Pugsy]

wever I keep getting an alarm with message saying low pressure. Any ideas on that message,

What machine?
It sounds like some message an ASV machine would alert to. I used to have a Respironics ASV that would give me that message and I never could figure out what was going on. It wasn't covered in any of the literature that I could find.

[OkyDoky]

wever I keep getting an alarm with message saying low pressure. Any ideas on that message,

What machine?
It sounds like some message an ASV machine would alert to. I used to have a Respironics ASV that would give me that message and I never could figure out what was going on. It wasn't covered in any of the literature that I could find.

As a guess, the Respironics 50 series ASV manual states the Low Pressure Alarm could be caused by dirty inlet filters, blocked air intake, or excessive leak in the patient circuit. If those check out you may need to have it checked out.

[SewTired]

First, I did very well on the S9. I just do better on the Airsense for Her algorithm. I wake up far less often during REM and near REM which is the only time I actually have apnea/RERA episodes. I see no difference in AHI, but then my AHI is nearly always below 1 with either S9 or For Her.

Apneas will still occur from 10-13 seconds. Most of the ones over 10 occur when you keep bumping against your top pressure. I just raised my pressure a bit - seemed to be an issue with the lingering cold. The way the For Her algorithm is supposed to work is that it starts raising pressure a few seconds earlier, but slower than the regular algorithm. It holds the pressure a bit longer and decreases slower as well. In other words, does the same thing as the original algorithm but a little less aggressive by starting just a little earlier. I'm not very good at reading these graphs, so I can't tell you if it is doing that or not.

If you are getting a new machine, I'd definitely get a For Her model since you may find that you could use that feature. But, to replace the Airsense 10 you already have? I think you might do better to just raise your pressure a bit as already suggested.

For the poster with the warning beacon, try unplugging your brick from the wall for about 5 minutes. Unplug the parts of the brick, replug them together and then plug in the wall. I had a similar message a couple of weeks ago and the part of the cord that plugs into the power brick wasn't completely in, and by then, the machine forgot its brains.

[Pugsy]

As a guess, the Respironics 50 series ASV manual states the Low Pressure Alarm could be caused by dirty inlet filters, blocked air intake, or excessive leake in the patient circuit. If those check out you may need to have it checked out.

Mine wasn't the 950 but instead it was the 960 and it would happen in the middle of the night for no reason and I would have to turn the machine off and back on again to get it to turn back on.
It's been a couple of years I guess...so I don't remember the exact wording of the message but I do know that the message wording I got wasn't covered in any of the manuals. I even talked to the people at acbio about it and again the wording of the message was such they couldn't find any mention of that alarm either. So it wasn't worded the same as the what you found...that I know because we found that and it wasn't the same and we all knew that it wasn't a dirty machine ...and there weren't any large leaks on the software report and when we looked at the pressure graph it never changed. It was a mystery. They even called Respironics.
Anyway I sent it to them because I was still under the warranty period and all they could find was a circuit board that "might" have been loose...they elected to just replace it anyway.
There's a way of getting all error codes off of a machine because anytime errors or alarms go off it gets written into code on the machine and is put on the SD card. We can't read it because it's in code but places like acbio can decode it. They saw the code for the message for each time it happened but again...no one ever found out exactly what it was alarming to.
It came back to me and never acted up again.
Aliens got blamed.

At any rate this message from guest56 does sound like some sort of ASV message and with those machines you never know what's going on and I would say it needs to be checked out by someone who knows what they are doing.

[emmagoldman44]

I have only 1 week on my Airsense10 Autoset for Her and all I can say is that I LOVE it...I am much more comfortable throughout the night with it than my S9 Autoset. I definitely see an improvement in the length of time I am in "apnea". It is much more sensitive to flow limitations than the S9 and thereby preventing apneas from happening in the first place.

Thank you for your input - could I ask you to provide a little more specific information from your sleepyhead data?

The main question I have for you, is when you are looking at an OA, does it still take 3 or more seconds to begin sending pressure pulses, and then does it do any better than 6 - 7 seconds of pressure pulses before the pressure substantially rises.

If you know how to do that imgur sleepyhead image posting, that would be so awesome, otherwise, I will be content with a verbal description.
Thank you!
(p.s. - posted a response to your autoset 10 question on your thread)

[emmagoldman44]

Thanks for everyone's responses so far. Just a little more info on the situation:

I am happy with my overall AHI situation - it is generally .2 - .6 and OAs less than .3. In fact, the last week amazingly my OA average was .08!

It's just that when they do occur later in the night, they tend to wake me up. So thinking long term, if the Resmed "for Her" delivers on its claims, if it reduces the duration of my OAs, hopefully that will help my sleep. I bought the Autoset 10 I am now using from craigslist and I am sure I can resell it for about the same price as I bought it for. But first I want data from actual users that the For Her works as promised. For example, they say:

"The AutoSet for Her features a more sensitive algorithm calibrated to detect flow limitations immediately. This early detection means corrective pressure changes can be applied at a more steady and comfortable rate" and " auto-adjusts to the optimum pressure on a breath by breath basis. "

True? or unproven claim????

[Wulfman...]

Thanks for everyone's responses so far. Just a little more info on the situation:

I am happy with my overall AHI situation - it is generally .2 - .6 and OAs less than .3. In fact, the last week amazingly my OA average was .08!

It's just that when they do occur later in the night, they tend to wake me up. So thinking long term, if the Resmed "for Her" delivers on its claims, if it reduces the duration of my OAs, hopefully that will help my sleep. I bought the Autoset 10 I am now using from craigslist and I am sure I can resell it for about the same price as I bought it for. But first I want data from actual users that the For Her works as promised. For example, they say:

"The AutoSet for Her features a more sensitive algorithm calibrated to detect flow limitations immediately. This early detection means corrective pressure changes can be applied at a more steady and comfortable rate" and " auto-adjusts to the optimum pressure on a breath by breath basis. "

True? or unproven claim????

From the clinical/provider manual:

AutoSet for Her mode
AutoSet for Her mode is based on key aspects of ResMed’s AutoSet algorithm and delivers
therapeutic responses tailored to the characteristics of female OSA patients.
The AutoSet for Her is similar to ResMed’s AutoSet algorithm with the following modifications:
 Reduced rate of pressure increments designed to help prevent arousals.
 Slower pressure decays.
 Treats apneas up to 12 cm H2O and continues to respond to flow limitation and snore up to
20 cm H2O.


Den

.

[emmagoldman44]

[quote="Wulfman..

From the clinical/provider manual:

AutoSet for Her mode
AutoSet for Her mode is based on key aspects of ResMed’s AutoSet algorithm and delivers
therapeutic responses tailored to the characteristics of female OSA patients.
The AutoSet for Her is similar to ResMed’s AutoSet algorithm with the following modifications:
 Reduced rate of pressure increments designed to help prevent arousals.
 Slower pressure decays.
 Treats apneas up to 12 cm H2O and continues to respond to flow limitation and snore up to
20 cm H2O.
Den

.[/quote]
Thanks, Den.
See, that is why I am asking real people for verification. Because those statements above are a little at odds with their sales description.
Like when they say above, "reduced rate of pressure increments", they drop the claim of "breath- by breath" responsiveness that they use in their promotional materials.