set up help

[jimmys]

I am new to this and had the machine for 6 months and last night was the first time I was able to try it. I took the test and have pretty bad apnea. I am claustrophobic and have severe allergies and had a nose mask but kept ripping it off as I couldn't breathe. Yesterday I got a new mirage quattro full face mask and was able to wear it the whole night [not without much discomfort mentally] but felt terrible this morning. I have a Resmed autoset spirt 11 S8 machine. I set it to auto and the low at 4 and the high at 12 and put in the proper mask. I dont have a humidifier but from reading posts this may help. Is this a good starting point for the number? I will look into getting the card reader and software but dont have anything at the moment. I live in Thailand and the language barrier doesn't help with the company and I have to everything by phone, so basically I am on my own with bits of help. I have now turned to help here.

thanks for any I can get

[Liddelbrook]

Ah Asia....

Very helpful people, but when I finally found a distributor in Indonesia, they just wanted 4 times (!) as much as the rest of the world, excluding tax. Oh. arrival in 2 or 3 months time.

If you have a terrible apnea, these values 4 and 12 seem a bit low to me. I had it at set at 7-20 and am now going to try 11 minimum tonight.

Why don't you set it at 7 and max at 20? See if feels better?

The card reader and software are necessary IMHO if you are going DIY, and even an oximeter may be handy.....

People are very helpful here on the forum, so please keep coming back.

Good Luck!

[Julie]

Quick question - is "12" a number you chose randomly, or the one a doctor gave you? If it's your choice, it's on the high side for starting out (how bad your apnea was when tested is not connected to how high, or low, the setting number(s) is). Having the low setting at 4, the machine default setting (20 being the default high) is not going to help anything because no one can breathe at that number and will feel like they're suffocating - 6 or 7 makes more sense, though I personally would probably even go up to 8. Then your upper number of 12 could be seen as being meaningful, assuming your usual range is around 10, but if you don't have the software and particular smart card, or a data capable machine, you could have a hard time deciding how well you're doing, not having much experience to go by even in terms of how good you feel. I would NOT set your high number at 20, however, or you could end up feeling like your face was being blown off!

As far as the mask goes, give it a chance... play with fitting by just making tiny adjustments over some time, to see if you can come up with a reasonable arrangement, or if you just need a different size, or possibly different mask altogether, though I do think that because of your allergies a full face mask is a good idea. For the same reason, however, keep in mind that if you set the humidifier high sometimes (depending on various things) it can cause congestion, and you don't want to do that). A humidifier is a good idea... if it works for you. I think most people do use them, but I don't (live a block from the ocean) and have never missed it.