Interpretation needed.

[Noddinggal]

Hello everyone. I am hoping that someone here can tell me what this means:

The patient's habitus, the rarity of snoring, a history of aortic regurgitation and hypothyroidism suggest a wider differential diagnosis including OSA, hypoventilation and central apnea

My actual study showed no obstructive apneas, no mixed and no central. It did show 30 hypopneas with an overall AHI of 5.8 and RDI of 21.8. This is considered mild OSA according to the sleep lab, but I'm wondering what the above statement means with regard to these results.

Thank you for any info anyone can give me on this. I'm so confused. The doctors are also not entirely in agreement as to whether or not CPAP is the answer, especially since I've gotten worse since using CPAP since early August. The sleep doctor read that statement I quoted above and just said, "hmmm, and the lab suggested the titration?" He wasn't the ordering doctor, he came on board AFTER I was told I had sleep apnea and was already using CPAP. I asked if he would have ordered the CPAP looking at my results and he said "probably not". He said he would have started with suggesting a 10% weight reduction since I am about 40 pounds overweight. But until we are sure about what's going on, I am told to continue using the machine so I don't end up getting billed from the DME if the insurance company refuses to pay if I'm not compliance. Ugh, such confusion. Meanwhile, I feel horrible. Worse than ever before. Anyway, I'm just curious as to what that sentence I quoted means.

[archangle]

Damn shame you got screwed with an Escape machine. If you'd gotten a data capable CPAP, they could tell if it's working and it wouldn't have cost you any more money.