Does your doc mind if you............

[Country4ever]

change your own pressure?
Mine, fortunately, is pretty cool about it. I only went up 1 cm of pressure, when my numbers got bad and I started feeling old symptoms return.
He said he was okay with it..........but not to tell anyone (like the DME, insurance co., etc.) lol!
Maybe they just have alot of really unintelligent patients who don't understand anything about their own treatment.

I had a visit with the doc yesterday and the tech who downloaded my info had a really hard time understanding/accepting that I had changed my own pressure. I think she's probably still irritated by it.

[LSAT]

I never discussed it with my doctor....6 years.

[Sir NoddinOff]

In the early days, while sitting in my sleep doctor's waiting room for endless periods of time, I started to notice people fiddling with their SD cards as they waited. Obviously they had to take time off work or out of their busy day just to get their SD info to the doctor's staff and ultimately the doctor (at least, I hope so ). Right then and there I decided I didn't want to be one of those people. I simply bought my own machine and change the pressure using info from this forum. I've never looked back in almost two years. At first my sleep doctor didn't think it was a good idea but now he's on board with the my taking my treatment into my own hands. Yes, he will look at my machine data, if I insist in a nice way, mostly in the form of Sleepyhead.

[sleeplessinaz]

Never discussed it with anyone! Lol! It my therapy same as a diabetic controls their blood sugar.

[Lukie]

Changed start pressure from 4 to 6. Nobody noticed. Don't ask; don't tell.

[CapnLoki]

After I showed my sleep doc SleepyHead and explained that I was a computer geek and of course had full access to the machine within minutes, he told me that I might as well do the changes he was proposing, and I was free to jiggle the pressure a bit to find the best setting.

I was about to mention that most doctors under 30 would assume that the average CPAP user can't set the time on the VCR let alone adjust the pressure, but realized that most people under 30 don't know what a VCR is!

[Bill44133]

My doctor told me to just keep her updated on what changes I make so that she can update records and DME etc.
She said it is nice to have a easy patient but make sure I send her my monthly reports.

[kaiasgram]

I also have my doctor's express blessing to adjust my pressure(s) as needed. It's nice to hear that more docs are getting on board with this. Maybe one of these days the ASAA forum powers-that-be will get up to speed on this and open the forum up to the kind of help we are able to give and receive here.

I think JediMark has a large hand in this positive trend -- I'm not sure my doctor would have felt comfortable with turning my therapy over to me the way he has if I had not brought in my SleepyHead reports and demonstrated my understanding of them and what they mean for my therapy. Thanks Mark!

[Captain_Midnight]

My doc (and his LPN) are fine with me adjusting my pressures to optimize therapeutic value.

Each year, I prepare for them a brief report using downloaded data, and they always seem impressed that a patient could be so engaged and assiduous about his therapy. (And, I am negatively impressed that other patients are disinclined to do something similar.)

.

[knothead]

I've never discussed with Doc or sleep clinic. Been going on 4 years and neither of them has asked for my chip...I raised my psi and told doc, he just looked at me. I asked if that was wrong, no was his reply. We're good...

[BlackSpinner]

Doctor told me to do what I wanted as long as my AHI stayed under 5. As pulmonologist at a busy hospital clinic he had more interesting patients to see and I had demonstrated my knowledge by babbling enthusiastically about my AHI, how great I felt and the internet - in French (When I saw him first I could barely manage a few words)

[mgaggie]

My specialist has no problem with me adjusting pressure. The clinic where I got my machine (heavily subsided rental) freaked out when I told them I could change my own pressure. Next time they tell me off, I'll tell them when you pay my fuel costs to get here and I don't have to wait four months to see you, then I'll leave it alone

[Janknitz]

I didn't know we had to learn to speak French to use CPAP!

[old dude]

.....

[RogerSC]

Started at 4-10cm with a 30 minute ramp from my sleep doctor, but I didn't have a titration study, so he had just guessed from experience. That got me down to an average AHI of about 1.5, not bad. Now I've turned off the ramp and am at 11-13cm, and my AHI is usually less than 1. He hasn't said anything about my changing the pressure, just likes my sleep data. Which is all fine with me. I think that if I brought it up, he'd be fine with it, but unless he brings it up I have no reason to.