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Janknitz wrote:Holy goodness--looks like a ventilator, not a CPAP!!!
It's a ventilator, but with CPAP, APAP and BiPAP options.
However, when you're on a hospital bed, and it's towering above you, it looks like Gozilla.
Carl LaFong wrote:So. . . did you sleep ok?
Not at first.
But I hadn't slept in 48 hours, and knew it was important to go to sleep, on PAP.
I got up, began playing with the onscreen controls.
First at bat: a very annoying beep, beep, beep when there's sufficient leakage, or some other parameter is met.
.I had to play around for a bit, going from screen to screen, until I figured how to silence that beep for all events.
Second at bat: At home, I use a ResMed S9 autopap, set at 10.4 to 15 (my settings, the nyc sleep doc is MIA, never hear from him, even if I call or email).
.So I went to the AutoPAP settings (not labeled as AutoPAP, but something else), set the range from 10 to 15.
Popped on the mask, the V60 has an autostart when you start breathing, and the air began to flow in.
.Way too hard, way too fast, felt like the flimsy mask was going to be blown right off my face.
.I pulled the mask off, confused.
. Then I realized this is a Respironics unit, not ResMed, and obviously uses Respironics' algorithm.
.Last time I used a Respironics APAP, I didn't employ a ramp, and remember the titration going from zero to sixty, max set pressure, in a few seconds of starting.
.Haven't seen others here complaining about that, so perhaps just two outliers in a row, who knows.
So, I went back to the screen, found the CPAP settings, figured straight 10.0 was close enough for disco.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
THAT DAMN MASK
Rested gal has insisted: "The mask is the #1 key to being able to "do CPAP, and I have to agree.
But this Fiddy Cent mask was seemingly built to
keep you from sleeping: razor sharp edges cut press against your skin, and you'd need to be a swami, training on a bed of nails, to fall asleep with this cheap toy.
.Course, (not-an-MD, but-I-play-one-on-CPAP-BBs) Moe wouldn't know anything visceral about this stuff, he's never had to wrestle with a mask in his life, gaping hole in his Pre-Copernican POV.
I played with the tiny cloth straps, about 1/4 of an inch wide, two velcros on each strap, they get caught in the thing you thread them through constantly, so it's a real bitch trying to get the right length.
.After, maybe 40 minutes of experimentation, air on, lying on my left side (as I always do, fall asleep and awake in that position), I finally got the straps on as good as I was going to get.
But it still hurt like hell, those damn sharp edges.
.And it was leaking straight into my left eye, no reasonable strap setting seemed to fix that.
So I amble up to the nurse's station, ask for some Vaseline.
.Get a whole bunch of vaseline "packets", like mustard and ketchup come at Mikey D's and other fine dining establishments.
.Back into bed, rub the stuff thick all over the sharp edges.
.Give it a try: much better, no sharp edges.
.But it still leaks hard into my left eye.
.So, I rip a tiny bit of tissue cloth off, ball it up to fit in the eye crook of the mask, cover it with vaseline.
.Couple of tries, and bingo, no more eye leak.
A couple of deep slow breaths, mentally go to my "special place" (Winter Storm, Vostok Station, Antarctica) and fall deeply asleep.
When I awaken, I check my recently purchased CMS 50D oximeter (I calibrated it when I was in the ER, bored, and playing with their equipment), and while it's obviously no Masimo Rainbow SET Rad-xx, the 50D seems damn accurate for it's absurdly cheap price.
My SpO2 was 99!
Then I realized that the V60 has an oxygen feed, so . . .
Anywayz, all of the above would never have happened without my rather short stint at CPAPtalk, and the generous people who've actually helped me here.
.
