Insurance Frustrations + CPAP purchase

[Fizzled]

Ah. I have a large tongue for my mouth and an overbite. With my mouth closed my tongue is pinned from the top and bottom.

[Fizzled]

Don't have any useful stats. I fell asleep for 45 minutes before I woke up due to nasal congestion making breathing a chore.

[123.Shawn T.W.]

Crank your moisture level up in the humidifier ... Do you usually have congestion problems?

[Fizzled]

Crank your moisture level up in the humidifier ... Do you usually have congestion problems?

Was thinking to do that too; humity from taking showers usually clears the nose up.

Congestion isn't normally a problem for me, but has been for the last week. I don't have allergies as far as I know and don't have a col but something's bugging my nose.

[Fizzled]

Last night was a lot better from a nasal standpoint. Drank a bunch of water and cranked up the humidity, kept the phlemyness way down. I ended up moving the machine up to 9 minimum as it a bit easier to breathe (is it weird to like higher pressures?)

Unforunately I think the small size of the nasal mask came into play as where contacted my face became too uncomfortable after an hour (was awake the whole time).

I viewed the data, I was screwing with the machine (pausing breaths, breathing lighter/deeper, etc.) to see what it would do in various circumstances. Sleepyhead said AHI for the hour was 3.98, not that I put any weight into that.

Is it just me or does the machine try to time breathing? If i would do a bunch of shallow breaths then take a large one, it seemed like the machine stopped flowing as much for the duration in excess of the shallows, then has an 'o crap' moment then catches up. Is this actual or in my head?

[Janknitz]

Yes, you'll feel that the machine is trying to drive the breathing, and if you hold your breath after about 15 seconds it will send out a puff (I can hear it more than feel it) to test your airway.

It takes some time to get used to this, but just breathe naturally and you and the machine will soon get into a rhythm. I don't usually notice it anymore, but I did a lot in the beginning. The other night I could NOT sleep, and I noticed it then for some reason.

I think it's less "pushy" if you turn the flex down to 1, but you may not be ready to do that yet.

[archangle]

That appears to be the same machine, a PR System One DS560 Auto with humidifier and heated hose.
It's being sold by a DME (Direct Home Medical), which claims to have sterilized it.

As far as I know, there's no approved way to sterilize a CPAP machine. You can sterilize the water tank, hose, and mask, and replace the filters. You can also wipe down the outside of the machine.

In concept, you could do something like an Ethylene Oxide sterilization, but that's fairly high tech, time consuming, and you need to somehow figure out whether enough EO gets into the innards of the machine, that it doesn't hurt the machine, and then you need to flush out the toxic EO and the residues it leaves behind.

[Fizzled]

If you want to kill biological organisms you can do it with ozone. It's the stuff that's responsible for the smell of the air during thunderstorms, or jacob's ladder.

Of course, it wouldn't do anything about oily residues, etc. but technically the device would be 'sterilized.' That is, assuming its oxidizing nature doesn't destroy the machine.

[archangle]

If you want to kill biological organisms you can do it with ozone. It's the stuff that's responsible for the smell of the air during thunderstorms, or jacob's ladder.

Of course, it wouldn't do anything about oily residues, etc. but technically the device would be 'sterilized.' That is, assuming its oxidizing nature doesn't destroy the machine.

Any level of ozone high enough to guarantee sterilization is probably going to damage plastic or the sensors inside the machine. If there are oily residues inside the machine, it might convert them into something more toxic.

I guess you could stick the machine into a dry heat chamber heated to 70C for a few days, but I'd want to let someone do that experiment on a large number of machines before they did it to my machine.

[Fizzled]

Probably have to preface this data, I tried to use the machine, but even with the medium cushion was pretty distracting. So, I fell asleep without it, woke up ~5AM and put it on. Now, my recollection is that I tried it for a while, got bugged and took it off, but it looks like in the statistics I actually fell asleep with it on for 2 hours? I have the area narrowed to the window of time in question.

Is there any significance to this data or is the sample window too small?

[Pugsy]

Once you can get settled on a mask and actually get some real sleep without the distractions keeping you sort of hyper alert then you will be able to evaluate the reports better.

The machine doesn't know if you are awake or not...and when we breathe while awake or semi awake often our breathing is much more irregular than when we are asleep and often the machine will flag awake/semi awake breathing irregularities by mistake.
I woke this morning and didn't turn my machine off right away. Instead I dozed a little and the cat was playing with me and I know I was awake a good bit of the last 30 minutes of my recorded time on the machine and I had 8 events get flagged during that time.
A mixture of clear airway, OA and hyponeas. I was 90% awake during that time I am sure...so I have to discount those events as not being "real" in the since that they even matter.

Your job is to try to find out how to go to sleep with the mask on and leave it on all night and sleep all night.
It's a hard job for some people. Let's face it...it's just not normal to sleep with an alien stuck on our face blowing air up our nose.
This mask stuff....the hardest part to all this therapy and once you beat the mask issues...downhill from there.

[Fizzled]

Yeah, I don't mind the pressure in the sinuses, but pressure on the outside of the face bugs me. Almost feels like I'm balancing an ergonomically shaped coffee mug.

I may order a nasal pillow mask and give those a whirl.

Question on data though. If I'm able to use it throughout a few nights, and the pressure doesn't rise above the 9 it's set at currently as a minimum (pressure is flatlined or doesn't change much), does that mean it's too high?

[Pugsy]

Get a nasal pillow mask.....I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Question on data though. If I'm able to use it throughout a few nights, and the pressure doesn't rise above the 9 it's set at currently as a minimum (pressure is flatlined or doesn't change much), does that mean it's too high?

Maybe...maybe not. I would need to see the pressure line graph to have a better idea how to respond.
If 9 cm is comfortable to you and 8 cm isn't ....it doesn't matter if you could maybe have used 8 cm and had effective apnea prevention.
Some people need more air movement for comfort and we have to be able to be comfortable to sleep (as you have found out).

Until you get good quality prolonged periods of sleep where you have REM (where your pressure needs might be greater) and sleeping on your back and really just getting good sleep period...we can't really evaluate pressure needs.

[Fizzled]

Hmm, I might try lower pressure tonight. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place as the mask's vent is pretty annoying at 9. It's pretty much silent at 6, but I feel like I'm suffocating.

[Drowsy Dancer]

even if you work with the sleep lab, you most likely need to become something of an expert on this kind of therapy and what does and does not work for your body and your face. Minor pressure changes, mask changes, changes in flex settings, etc. all seem to affect each person differently, and I don't think most sleep labs are going to take the kind of time necessary to really know exactly how your body responds to every possible adjustment. It is a long process, but I can already see how rewarding it is in the long term.

You absolutely will need to become an expert on you and your own apnea. (I'm very grateful mine is plain vanilla).