I am not a stupid person and I consciously attempt to not become a victim of the health care system in the US but you may question my intelligence when you read the following.
In October of 2006 I began the use of a CPAP from a provider here in Las Cruces. This unit was a PB Goodnight 420G. About ten months later I knocked this unit over in the night and it became dysfunctional due to water spilling into the machine from the humidifier. I returned it and was issued what appeared to be a slightly used PB Goodnight 420E. I took this machine home and began using it that evening. The sense of air pressure was different than what I had been used to and I thought this was strange but continued to use it.
I called the provider office here about a week later and asked to speak to the sleep therapist. I then explained that I was not sure the CPAP was operating correctly and wondered if I should return it and have it checked out. He informed me that he had personally checked the pressure, it was set at nine, and there was nothing wrong with the machine.
Well, I continued to use the 420E and as time went on I slowly began to doubt the efficiency of the 420E. In the past few months I have been feeling progressively worse – very little energy, sleepy during the daytime, and non-rested and groggy upon waking.
I began looking at medications, exercise problems, depression and anything else that may be causing this condition and pursued this avenue of inquiry for several months.
It was only about two weeks ago I decided it would be good to look around on the internet for information concerning CPAPs and what I discovered was that the machine I now owned was actually an APAP and that it is a machine that alternates the pressure according to the feedback from the patient. Well, this seemed to fit….except to my knowledge and sense of pressure it never had gotten much above a three or four. That is, judging from my prior experience with the 420G which had always felt powerful in its delivery of air.
Still having some confusion about what was going on I continued to look for more information on the 420E and discovered further that it requires a special hose with an air tube inside to sense and regulate the proper pressure. This is something that was not included with the 420E when I picked it up initially, was not mentioned or suggested when I first complained in August of 2007 and was never included in any shipments of supplies from this provider.
Upon discovering the need for a special hose I called the local office and was put through to the Albuquerque office and was connected to the sleep therapist up there who immediately understood what had happened and suggested I call Phoenix and ask for the correct hose with the sensor inside. This I did, and the hose arrived in a few days and is now installed on the 420E and the difference is remarkable. I am now getting the correct apnea therapy.
It was due to my stumbling upon cpap.com and this user group that I gained the information necessary to understand what was wrong and also to discover that it was possible to get the SilverLining software to program and monitor the 420E.
Last night I cleaned out the old worthless data (saved it however) and programmed it to operate in APAP mode using settings I thought might work based on what I have read here at CPAP.com user group.
Here is what I used:
Min 4
Initial 9 (this is my sleep study CPAP setting)
Max 12
IFL1 and IFL2 – I used the default of max pressure on command of 10. (I don’t understand what these really mean).
My average pressure was 10.3.
Do you think I should change my initial pressure to 10? Or, wait a few nights to see if this trend continues?
Thanks for all the help.
