Bought a bi-pap auto with bi-flex

cflame1 · Post by **cflame1** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 6:49 pm

Knowing my medical history (asthma plus excess weight and not sleeping prior to xpap) and that of the rest of my family... heart and breathing and sleep plus more on both sides. FWIW, my dad's probably had sleep apnea since at least his 30's... he's now in his 70's and slowly dying. My cousins and my father, all of them have hearts that miss beats during 24 hour periods.

I recently went to yahoo auctions and purchased a bipap auto. Was expecting a used one (even asked how many hours were on the machine, which was not answered)... looking at this one it looks new, the hours on it are zero and all of the manuals came with it. Definately worth looking into if you're looking for a machine. I'm gonna try it out tonight. Now to just figure out what to set the thing to... my minimum on my auto was 7.5 or 8... otherwise I would wake up as if I wasn't on it at all. Maximum... last night it got to 16 (that's what the max was set at).

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Snoredog · Post by **Snoredog** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 7:08 pm

unfortunately if your pressure requirements are only 7 or 8cm, I'm afraid your going to find the Bipap Auto probably isn't going to help you any more than a straight autopap would.

Bi-Paps only seem to help when your pressures are much higher than mid teens or close to the max pressure of 20cm.

The Remstar Bipap Auto uses the exact same algorithm as the Remstar Auto w/cflex, meaning it will respond the same to the events seen.

Settings?

Set the Min. pressure to the pressures you used with your autopap (7 or 8cm).
Set the Max. pressure 1-2cm above your last 90% pressure.
BiFlex is like Cflex it should have 3 settings, try the middle setting of 2, adjust up/down until it feels comfortable to breath against.
If you got the manuals, it should give you some suggested starting settings.

dsm · Post by **dsm** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 5:24 am

Do bear in mind that this is cpap.com's website & they really aren't too excited (justifiably) at recommendaions for people to buy elsewhere.

But that aside, cpap.com may well have advised you based on your titration cms, to try some thing else, perhaps even better priced.

Good luck with this machine but as words of advice in your case, keep your upper cms limit & lower cms limits no more than 3cms above & below your titration cms.

The Bipap Auto is a *very* complex machine & you have a lot of potential for getting things wrong.

Hopefully you will get all the advice you need here but IMHO, your case appears to be a challenge because your cms is so low.

Cheers

DSM

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cflame1 · Post by **cflame1** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 6:14 am

Fine... I'll do it myself if I need to (or pay for some help if I have to). I had a wonderful sleep last night... could even tell from the numbers. Flow limitations were down.

My PSG... the tech had said that she thought that I needed another one... kept telling me that I was holding my breath and I wasn't. I was having an asthma attack. So, do I believe that the numbers are right... nope.

Moogy · Post by **Moogy** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:50 pm

Congrats on the new machine! I don't think you will have too much trouble, since apparently you have already been on an autocpap.

Are you using the biflex option? The max. biflex of 3 isn't comfortable for me, but with a setting of 2, I find the biflex very helpful.

Moogy

cflame1 · Post by **cflame1** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:30 pm

Thanks Moogy... last night mine was set at 1. Anything higher than that and I have asthma trouble.

it seemed pretty straight forward. Going to give it some more time and see whether the numbers that I have in it make sense, looks like Encore's going to give me the numbers that I need in order to do that. It sure was easier breathing.

rested gal · Post by **rested gal** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 6:40 pm

cflame1 wrote:it seemed pretty straight forward. Going to give it some more time and see whether the numbers that I have in it make sense, looks like Encore's going to give me the numbers that I need in order to do that. It sure was easier breathing.

I agree cflame...a very comfortable machine to use and quite straight forward to set up. True BiPAP style exhaling is very nice even if a person isn't prescribed high pressures. And even if a person can exhale ok against their prescribed pressure. Just feels like more natural breathing to me.

dsm · Post by **dsm** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 8:13 pm

cflame,

I came across this study recently & although it goes back to 2002 it is still very relevant.

You may find it interesting (& maybe not) but am hoping it proves informative.

Cheers

DSM

http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/cgi/conte ... /165/6/773