My first few floundering years (new here)

[externmed2]

I knew my father has severe sleep apnea ever since I heard of the condition in 1972 or so. I wondered about myself as I had been told that I snored terribly on the few occasions that there was someone to hear.
Finally in the early 90s I described to someone what sleep apnea sounded like and asked them to listen to me. Was told, definitely!

Called local sleep lab, got an appointment in a few weeks, then a repeat appointemt for titration. Tech said she couldn't give me results, but I seemed to have significant sleep apnea. After 2 to 3 weeks of no results, made an appointment with the director of the lab. He told me that I had O2 sats down to 50 or 60%, that I was at risk for pulmonary hypertension and early death and that I needed a cpap. He concluded with, "good-bye and good luck."

At this point I wanted a cpap *right now*, but it took a couple of weeks to get it through the insurance and a couple of more weeks to get the machine from Apria. The good news was that I had no trouble using it.

A year or so later I was definitely wondering how I was doing, and made an appointment with another sleep specialist. He reviewed the reports from the sleep study and said, "if you read this it looks like he knows what he is talking about, but . . . . " He thought the O2 sats of 50 to 60 were ridiculous, and the first guy (MD) (was a fool for believing them). He suggested I see an ENT and talked about an upper and lower jaw advancement. He said this was a long surgery, but there was no pain afterward because everything was strapped and screwed together. The ENT he suggested, was someone who had been trying to buy some real estate I owned and this sounded way too drastic--and I didn't want a surgeon who might have mixed motives.

Subsequently I had a chat with another ENT who said that it was absurd to think there wasn't a lot of pain after the jaw advancement surgery, and any type of surgery was often not the way to go.

Moving on, I had a somewhat unpleasant sleep study in a Walmart-like chain of sleep centers. I didn't sleep well with far too little REM, but they thought I was doing reasonably well and suggested a pressure increase from 12 to 16 and possibly a bipap.

Eventually I bought a DeVilbiss RPM bipap. It was horrible. With every change in pressure it made conversation loudness, wheezing sounds; and I was sure I could never sleep with it. At times too, it felt like it was going to blow my face off. Fortunately I was a able to set it to cpap and learned to live with it in the non-loud, non- wheezing mode. For some reason I was in a hurry to get a machine, and I aways wondered if I got it because it was what they had on hand and maybe had been returned because someone else found it so awful. A couple of years later it ceased working at 5000 hours.

Last year, had my worst sleep study at the worse incarnation of the big Walmart sleep study chain. Took 2 to 3 hours to go to sleep and then I was promptly woken up by the tech to inform me that I was sleeping on my side (as I usually do); but the study needed to be done on my back. I guess my apnea episodes were acceptable, but I slept no more than 3 hours and had almost no REM sleep. The latest MDs office called to change my follow-up appointment because the doctor was not going to be there, I had to make it 6 weeks later because of my work schedule. A few weeks later they called to say the doctor had left the practice. All that I remember from her was that I shouldn't have to use breathe right strips when I'm using cpap. Well, most of my cogestion is right in the front part of my nose, and I do have to use them.

So I'm shopping for a new machine, and I'm thinking I'd like one that would tell *me* how I was doing.

signed
New Here

[spookydoo]

I just moved from the Respironics M Series A Flex to the Resmed S8 Auto II and I love the S8. It's quieter, it's easier to breathe, and the software was easy to load and read. I would highly recommend the software and card reader. Great data. I've also read that the M Series software can be difficult to load and takes up a lot of memory space. So, my vote is Resmed S8 Auto II. But the truth is that there are some very good machines out there. That's my experience though.

[Julie]

Hi, your congestion may be due to your humidifier being set too high - happens to lots of us.

[PAPalogical]

New Here -

Great to see you've managed on your own for so long. If you do get new machine, get one you can download the data on - you've passed the hurdle of keeping the mask on, and have found this forum for help, now if you can just read your own data, you'll be most (or all) of the way to being able to monitor / manage your own care.

john

[RipVW]

Hello & Welcome, externmed2! Glad you found this forum—SO much useful info and everyone here is so willing to help!

All of us here believe that a data capable machine is a must have. Beyond that, which brand you get, and whether you get an auto titrating machine, is really a matter of personal preferences and opinions. Personally, I LOVE my M Series Auto APAP, prefer it over the ResMed. Good luck!

"You are getting sleepy . . ."

[Ganesha]

I second spookydoo's recommendation of the ResMed S8 AutoSet II. It is the one I use. I have no previous CPAP experience but it is quiet and I get my data off the display. So far I have not seen the need to spring for the software and card reader (but I still may).

Welcome to the forum.
Mark

[externmed]

Hi all,

Just a quick note to express my appreciation. I am grateful for everyone's kind and helpful comments.

Thanks again,

Charlie (New Here)

[Wulfman]

Welcome to the forum.

Do you have your prescription? If you "need" a Bi-PAP, you'd also need to have a Bi-Level titration and a specific prescription for that. If your pressure needs are above 10 cm., a ResMed Auto/APAP may not be a good choice.

Den