Upgrading from S8 to S9!

[WhoDatSleeping]

Hey gang! I am upgrading from the S8 to the S9 Elite!
I ordered the S9 via CPAP.com which is the first time I have used them and I have to say the experience has been pleaseant so far.
I placed the order late Friday and within an hour I was getting a called from CPAP.com to disucss my purchase and to let me know it will be shipping Friday as well! Wow, that was quick.

The unit arrives Wednesday and I am looking forward to playing with my new toy. You see, I love gadgets and I look at cpap equipments as gadgets like my computer and A/V equipments.

Anyway, I would love any advice/tips you guys can share about the S9!

Also, since I travel a good bit, I will be using the S8 as my travel CPAP.

Thanks

[Samba]

Why the change ?

[WhoDatSleeping]

I was looking for a travel CPAP. Since the S8 has been good for me, I decided to stay with ResMed for both. Also, I ordered the new Mirage FX Nasal mask.

[torontoCPAPguy]

I essentially did the same thing here. Had an S8 Escape that the government helped me get screwed on (don't ask) and two S8 Autoset II's that I paid less for than my share of the Assistive Devices government programme "my" share. Wound up selling the two S8 Autoset II's and getting two S9 Autosets, keeping the S8 Escape which sits in the den beside the couch (no humidifier) and is used with a nose mask when I turn on golf or the baseball game and drop myself off to sleep. SO.... I have TWO S9 Autosets and the Escape. Unless it is a long trip I use the S8 Escape to travel with.

Would like to find a third party DC power connector to power it up from a GelCel battery when without power, but we have an extra heavy duty transverter in the car that provides 110 VAC into a wee UPS that gives us sine wave output and battery backup and filtration. Still, it would be nice to have a DC only cable so that we could just plug right into a marine battery when RVing or camping. (Not that I expect to be doing that for a while).

I really don't find a huge difference between the S8's and the S9's to be honest but there are a few wee features that make them attractive to many and I really just upgraded to have the latest technology and a new warranty.

You will enjoy either as long as you are doing all the right stuff. Had my sleep doc tell me that I know more than him about OSA a few weeks back (very reassuring?) as a couple of good friends on the board (you know who you are) and I decided I needed a minor oxygen infusion at night in order to sleep soundly when my breathing went shallow and my SpO2 dropped below 90% killing my REM sleep and shooting up my BP.

I am going to make a seperate post, but I now have Atrial Fibrillation and am sure that OSA was a major cause amongst other possible causes (they can't really say what caused it concretely).

Untreated or improperly treated OSA can and WILL KILL YOU my friends. Seems so trite and so bizarre but it is a fact and there is no doubt about it.

Wishing everyone nights of AHI=0 sleep and good health.

Murray

[Rickd1]

I had a hard time with the FX mask it leaked really bad on me but it was small and light I really liked that I guess I move to much at nite...

[torontoCPAPguy]

BTW, there are several articles and threads on travelling with CPAP/APAP and no power. We have played around and continue to do so depending on our travel situation (driving/flying). Sometimes we just use a honkin big gelcel and a top quality power inverter to get 110 VAC and plug into that. More than often, if travelling by car we will toss one of our 1,000VA or 1,200VA UPS's and plug into that if away from power. What I would really like to do is just travel with a honkin big battery and a DC cable but seems to me that the DC cables are quite expensive and we have alternative means right at hand.

In ANY event, what I wanted to say here was that if travelling do not think for one second that you can travel without your CPAP/APAP gear!!!!! It could be the mistake that costs you your life. Fact is that we have our gear usually plugged into a UPS anyway at home in case we have a power failure at night. No sleep interruption. No low SpO2. No skyrocketing BP. No stroke.

And if you think you can sneak around it I am here to tell you that messing around with your BP and SpO2 is very serious business and in my case, I believe, led to a honkin good case of persistent atrial fibrillation which I hope will be resolved in the next year through heart surgery called catheter ablation.

Educate yourselves my friends. Know MORE than your doctors on the subject and have questions (they hate it). And DO NOT EVER mess around with your life by thinking a few nights without CPAP is okay. Once educated, perhaps consider titrating or tweaking your pressures or adding some O2 at night if your pulse oximeter is telling you that you are dropping low. We even invested in a Datascope automatic BP meter (hospital grade) with printout/memory to check our BP during the night. Drops and spikes in BP and other such things caused by OSA can and will create afflictions that will make OSA look like a cake walk. DON'T MESS AROUND - fix the problem and stay with it!

Warmest regards as always

[torontoCPAPguy]

I can't use the FX either.... I go with the Mirage Activa LT when on the couch and the Mirage Quattro Pro FFM when in bed... I am a pillow smoosher and the Quattro pretty much allows me to move around and smoosh my fact into the pillow generally without issue. The major issue, believe it or not, is the exhaust air being blown out of the mask when it hits my wife in the back of the head. I generally get a poke.

[brothermike]

Torontoguy, I too have suffered with a-fib, and have for about the last 5 yrs (that I'm aware of)...and went in two yrs ago for a catheter ablation procedure...it didn't seem to help at all....my CHAD score was zero...meaning that I have no obvious contributing conditions that might cause the irregularities in my heartbeat...THEN..I went in for a sleep study and subsequently began to use BiPap therapy...my a-fib symptoms have diminished substantially. I am still cautiously optimistic that this sleep therapy will continue to soothe my a-fib tendencies..

having worn an event monitor for one month prior to my ablation, I realize that not all of my atrial symptoms were obvious to me after having learned from a technician that I'd had many more events than I was aware of...still....I haven't suffered from an OBVIOUS atrial event now for about a week and that's a significant improvement. hope endures

[Slinky]

God looks after fools, fellas. You just werent as foolish as I was!!! I've been "blessed" w/what appears to be mild, intermittent A fib. Caused by untreated OSA for 10 years? Caused by increasing COPD? I was just Dx'd w/the A fib late last summer/early fall. Like brothermike, apparently I was having some events I wasn't aware of that were brought to our attention by a 30 day event monitor. However, I've been blessed, I've not had a recognizable event since the 3rd day after starting Rythmol (along w/Diltiazem started a little earlier {later switched to Toprol due to edema} ). Of course, we won't know for sure about any unrecognized events until after another event monitor for verification but I don't see the cardiologist until early July when he will order one. We are still playing around w/the coumadin dosage and haven't been able to really stabilize a standard dose so we're going thru a lot more INR draws than is the norm.

TorontoCPAPGuy, I sure hope the ablation does the job for you! Good luck and God bless. BrotherMike, I hope the PAP therapy does the trick for you w/the A fib! Good luck and God bless to you too!

[Slinky]

You wanna know what I miss most about my S8s???? Not having to have the *&%^ data card in the PAP every time I use it. If I forget to put the card back in after doing a download before I go to bed that night, the data will be there to load on the card the next day. I don't know about the S9s for sure, but these *^%*&*^ Respironics, PR S1s HAVING to have that card in when running to get the data ...... grrrrrrrrr! Fer crying out loud, you would think the darn PAPs could hold a couple of night's data w/o the card and transfer that data to the card when it is inserted a day or even two later.

[Alsacienne]

My DME has given me an S9 Elite II to replace my S8 Elite II. Having fought against my AHIs and pressure issues, AND mask leaks with that S8, showing me AHIs of about 8 an hour and leaks of more than 0.4l ... suddenly there's been a miracle ........... and on the S9 I'm showing less than 2.5 AHIs, no leaks and all at the pressure shown by my titration study.

What is it between these two machines that has made all the difference. It sure as hell wasn't me!!

[rested gal]

My DME has given me an S9 Elite II to replace my S8 Elite II. Having fought against my AHIs and pressure issues, AND mask leaks with that S8, showing me AHIs of about 8 an hour and leaks of more than 0.4l ... suddenly there's been a miracle ........... and on the S9 I'm showing less than 2.5 AHIs, no leaks and all at the pressure shown by my titration study.

What is it between these two machines that has made all the difference. It sure as hell wasn't me!!

Dunno about the change in leaks...

... but, if your previous (S8) AHI was usually made up mostly of hypopneas, the change in definition for "hypopnea" that ResMed made in the S9 series machines could account for the lower AHI you're seeing on the S9.

Resmed S9 hypopnea scoring - the smoking gun
topic started by ozij - June 9, 2010
viewtopic.php?p=488559#p488559

An old topic about the Hypopnea index reported by S8 machines:
High HI affecting AHI rating. Should I be worried
topic started by ChrisC - Mar. 30, 2009
viewtopic.php?p=355205

Glad to hear you're enjoying your new machine! You've got a good one.
I think the name of it is just "S9 Elite", btw, with no "II" on the end of the name. The S8's had a "II", but I don't think the S9 Elite has a number in its name.

[Guest]

From RestedGal way back in 2009

We often speak on the message board of how it's good to get our AHI below 5. We talk about how "under 5" means "effective treatment." That could be very discouraging to users of ResMed S8 machines who see AHI more than 5, mainly because of the reported "hypopneas." They could think they were not getting effective treatment when they really were. So, I encourage people using a ResMed S8 machine to mentally cut the Hypopnea Index (HI) in half, then add that to the Apnea Index (AI) to see an AHI that's COMPARABLE to what they'd see if they were using another brand of machine.

OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! She could have been writing word for word about me! I've been getting very upset for the past 6 months exactly because of this!!!! IF ONLY!!

Now I can move forward. Thanks. And yes, it's an S9 Elite ... no II! Thanks for pointing this out, as I'll now get the correct documentation from my DME to show to Customs and Security when I travel by air.

Once again MANY MANY THANKS to all of you on this board for your advice, support and encouragement.