Interesting Side-Effect in Switch from CPAP to APAP

[dsm]

Amigo,

I too believe you will eventually go back to cpap mode
The varying of the pressure during the night seems to trigger more disruption in many people than any benefit the apap mode offers.

I started off with an apap as my 1st machine but ran it in cpap mode for the 1st 6 weeks while participating in a study being conducted of 100 new cpap users. After the study I went to apap mode - tried it with roughly 3 down 2 up (3 below & 2 above titration). After 6 months decided it was not working & went bilevel & have not really gone off bilevel since (even my travel cpap has a bilevel mode (being EPR mode)).

I would really like to hear from our bilevel auto users as to how happy they are as I strongly suspect they too may not be 100% satisfied but that is just a suspicion. I did use a Bipap Auto with Biflex & it seemed pretty good but I only used it for a week. I preferred a bilevel that allows a minimum ipap/epap gap to be set by the user.

The thing about AUTO mode is that the theory is wonderful - it is just the reality that doesn't seem to match it. When AUTOs 1st came out many of us sang their praises & would tell people the AUTO is fantastic because it waits until you have an event then it raises the pressure & clears it - then some of us started challenging this widely held theory as we discovered that AUTOs don't clear events when they occur & that AUTOs change pressure very very slowly.

The reality turned out to be that an AUTO looks for OSA pre-cursor patterns (flow lims, & snores) and uses them as a signal to slowly raise pressure in the expectation that these pre-cursor events are leading up to OSA (no-flow apnea).

The worst case use of AUTOs is when a DME sends one out the door with the factory 4-20 pressure settings. Such a machine will take so long to get to the 'zap' pressure that the event may well have come and gone & so often we hear of DMEs & Doctors prescribing that 4-20 range which only goes to show how little they understood the way the machines work - the result is usually a very unhappy AUTO user.

AUTOs set to a tight band of pressure (my rule is 2 under & 2 over titration) do work & can work very well for some people.

So, your experience is not weird - just confirms what many of us longer term users already know.

DSM

[rested gal]

Well, I couldn't get past laughing at Lansinoh's depiction of "Mother Nature" at the link SAG posted:

Carrying a PURSE, of all things!!!


Her dress got awfully short for some reason...


Which may have lead to this...


Who says you can't fool Mother Nature?

[Hawthorne]

And I'm having a good laugh at your added captions Rested Gal!

[StillAnotherGuest]

Well, a keen observer of these types of things asked

So where the heck are you hiding lunch?

SAG