Does my husband need a sleep doc?

[SueKZ]

My husband got his first CPAP at age 62 about 2 months ago. His family dr. finally ordered him a sleep study, which frankly I consider negligent. He has been deathly tired for a lot of years. He kept giving him Xanax, among other drugs to help him sleep before. So this family Dr. did finally order the study and here we are finally with some success on his CPAP. Shouldn't he have some kind of sleep Dr. monitoring him??? I cannot imagine a DME company does that job.

[cosmo]

I was shipped a machine 2 months ago. Haven't heard a peep from anyone. I don't have compliance rules so that might have something to do with it....

[SueKZ]

Then who analyzes the data on his SD card or whatever that is called, or who decides when you need a new study, ever?

[zoocrewphoto]

It would probably be better if he had a sleep doctor who was actually looking at data and making adjustments. But the good news is that the S9 elite has full data, and the software is free. YOU can get that data and see how his treatment is going, and make adjustments if you need to.

[SueKZ]

Can you please tell me exactly how to do this and how then heck does one know now to read all that data?

[zoocrewphoto]

Can you please tell me exactly how to do this and how then heck does one know now to read all that data?

There are two kinds of software you can use. I prefer ResScan, but lots of people like sleepyhead. Try both and see which one you like. Both are free.

http://storage.resmed.com/software/ress ... .1_SP1.exe

http://montfordhouse.com/cpap/resscan_tutorial/


I made a webpage that shows some of my sleep study results and what it means, and then an example of one of my nightly reports and what it means. I made it so that my friends in other areas of country could understand what I am talking about when I say I have sleep apnea and use a machine to help me breath.

http://www.zoocrewphoto.com/apap.htm

You can also post reports here and people will look at them and help you with advice. Somebody here told me about a program in windows called snipping tool. I use that to take screen shots. Or you get get a report and save it as a jpg. You then need to upload it somewhere like photobucket. Then you pick the IMG button above the post you are typing and copy the url into that.

[archangle]

Even though there are many doctors who are board certified and claim to be sleep doctors, far too many of them give their patients very cursory overviews. Often, the only thing they check is that the patient is using the machine 4 hours a night because the insurance won't pay if they don't. i.e. As long as the cash register rings and the patient doesn't really complain a lot, the doctor doesn't really manage.

While this is bad, most apneacs will be MUCH better on "dumb" CPAP than without.

You lucked out and got a good manual CPAP machine. It's a bit like having a mini sleep study every night. A competent doctor can check how well the therapy is going with that. Many doctors don't even insist on a good CPAP machine and the patients get a "brick" machine that only records when you turn it on and off.

Fortunately, you can get software to read the data yourself. You'll probably do a better job at it yourself than any doctor you're likely to find.

Even the "good" doctors are probably just going to look at the AHI numbers and tinker if it's over 5, and leave it alone if it's not.