About to buy a Resmed ASV out of pocket. Is this the right decision?

[Huskers123]

After months of trying to get my sleep apnea issues resolved I have given up on the insurance route. I am on the verge of losing my job due to lack of sleep and severe anxiety. I used my APAP for a couple months with no luck and have posted my results on here. Am I making the right call here in buying an ASV machine on my own? This is going to cost me over $2,000 and I really hope I am not wasting my money. I have posted some more of my results below. Please let me know if you think this will be worth it for me. Thank you!

[Guitarist]

Lol .... I just bought my equipment outright. I work in Healthcare and I have no insurance imagine that. Your Health is more important then money.

[Pugsy]

Did you ever try just turning EPR off and see what the centrals do?

If the bulk of those centrals are SWJ false positives...that high dollar machine is over kill.

[JDS74]

Wait a few more days and use the time to drill down on the flowrate graph to see if they are real CAs or just trash. I can't tell from the high level report that you posted.
A real one would look more like:
https://sleepjunkies.com/wp-content/upl ... is-csa.jpg
Where the breathing actually stops and then restarts gradually. Real CAs are like Cheyne-Stokes breathing (you might spend a little time looking that up for personal education.
Obstructives look different.

If they are real, the getting the machine will help but the journey without a sleep study will be difficult.
There are several members of the CPAPTALK ASV club that will be able to help.

[Huskers123]

Did you ever try just turning EPR off and see what the centrals do?

If the bulk of those centrals are SWJ false positives...that high dollar machine is over kill.

I tried pretty much every EPR setting possible. Nothing seemed to reduce the centrals. Now I do not know for sure if they are real but I am getting nowhere with my sleep quality and at this point am willing to try anything. I have been at this for several months now with zero progress.

[JDS74]

Looking over your posts, it looks like you are changing pressures, expecting a miracle and then changing pressures again the next day.

To get the most knowledgeable folks to concentrate on helping you, here are some things to do and report.
1) Use the OSCAR enlargement function to expand the Flow Rate graph around the CAs reported. That will give you (and us) a picture of how long the CAs last and what else is going on at that same time.

2) It would be helpful to describe what you are experiencing in terms of poor sleep quality. For example, do you wake up frequently during the night? Does it take a long time for you to fall asleep? What are you doing in the few hours before you are in bed and turning the machine on? Do you eat late? Any alcohol or caffeine drinks in the couple of hours before bed? Is your going to bed time erratic? Do you read in bed, watch TV, etc.?


Unlike OSA events and Hypopneas which can be effectively eliminated with the correct settings, an ASV machine does not suppress CAs. What it is supposed to do is treat them by changing the inhale pressure and the exhale pressure so that even though your body is not performing patient initiated breathing, none-the-less, the machine creates the pressure environment to keep you breathing much like a ventilator. Sometimes, the algorithm short circuits an incipient CA and gets your breathing restarted in a much shorter time than would normally happen. That all being said, a CA index of 5 or so is not a bad number providing the individual events are pretty short. Before I got my first ASV machine, my CA events would last 5 to 6 minutes for each event. Now they last usually less than 30 seconds to a minute. For my health, that's a huge improvement. But … they are still there, just being treated now and not messing me up.

So first, let's find out if the CAs you are experiencing are harmful (long lasting) and what else might be making your sleep not restorative. Then you can make an informed decision of whether or not to get a different type of machine.

[Pugsy]

It's real important to know if those centrals are real asleep centrals or SWJ false positive centrals.

If they are SWJ false positives from arousals or wake ups unrelated to apnea....no machine is going to fix them. Instead you have to try to fix the cause of the poor sleep.

At this point we don't know if your crappy sleep is from the centrals or the centrals are SWJ from the crappy sleep.
So there's no way anyone can comment on how "right" the decision might be or might not be in your situation.

If the centrals are real and you are asleep when they happen...ASV should fix it but if they are SWJ false positive centrals the machine isn't going to be able to do much because they aren't related to apnea. The machine can't fix problems not related to apnea.

Costly experiment.

Did you ever watch the videos here to help learn how to figure out awake vs asleep flagged events?
http://freecpapadvice.com/sleepyhead-free-software