Respironics v. Resmed-not the same

[Gmandenver]

For me, the Respironics (System One) has been much, much, superior to Resmed (Air Sense 10). I am posting because I have seen here that there is no significant difference. I was diagnosed with "severe" sleep apnea (70 AHI) in April 2015. A friend loaned me his System One and I started using it immediately, prior to getting to see a doctor, which occurred on June 15. The doctor read the card and I had averaged 3.5 over the last 30 days, most of which had been at altitude in Denver. The doctor is in San Diego and the night prior I had a 1.1 in San Diego. They sent me to a sleep company who "gave" me a brand new Resmed Air Sense 10. I had them give me the same new Respironics mask I had used before. For the next couple of weeks in San Diego the Resmed seemed ok, I was under 5 for a while. I returned to Denver July 11. The Resmed started being very erratic. I was in Denver until the 17th. For the 14th through the 15th my numbers were over 30, building up to that since being in San Diego. After consulting with the sleep therapist, the last night in Denver I used my friends System One and was immediately at 7.7. I returned to San Diego on the 17th, last night, and my number on the System One was .9. That is point nine!

[Julie]

You're blaming a manufacturer for what could have been a lot of different things going on that maybe had nothing to do with them. To begin with, your friend's machine could have been set up in some respects differently to yours, possibly even in ways they'd forgotten about when lending it to you. Second, your machine might have issues that need looking into because of normal glitches that can affect any machine of any type, and saying the other machine was better without proper investigation isn't necessarily valid. And... you're assuming the PRS1 was in perfect shape because you like having had a low AHI, but what if it had a defect of its own that you weren't aware of?

[Gmandenver]

I said "For me." As far as machine setup, maybe I am missing something, but there are two things you can change, pressure and humidity. The pressure for the System One was always 11. Because of the poor results with the Resmed, with the sleep therapist's direction, I messed with the pressure going up to 12 and down to 10 just to try and get it to work. I also played with the humidity on the Resmed, without any change in my results. My blood pressure also went up with the Resmed. It immediately dropped the day I switched back to the System One. I can say unequivocally that the Resmed is a poor machine for me.

It took about 5 minutes on this forum for me to see there are a lot of moving parts to the treatment of sleep apnea. My point is that if you are not getting results with one machine, try another to see if you get improvement. This is not a knock on Resmed generally. Obviously a lot of people have success with it. I have read on this forum there is no difference. In my limited experience, that is not true.

[SewTired]

It's true. For most people, the two machines are equivalent and they will get good numbers with either. For some if us, one algorithm works better than the other and dramatically so. I am one of those. The Respironics 560 is simply not working for me in auto mode. Even though I get similar numbers, I am waking all the time. I finally switched to straight pressure. It works, but not nearly as well as the S9 AutoSet did in auto mode. I get to pick up my Airsense on Monday, so looking forward to better sleep.

Now, I have a lot of RERAs, so I suspect this is involved with my experience.

But, I do agree with you that switching machines should be considered when everything has been tried. The problem, is the cost of course. But a used machine could pave the way to answers.