How to tell if you need to switch doctors?

Hi, I am recently diagnosed with sleep apnea, 14 AHI.

I'm having a really hard time adjusting to CPAP therapy. But what I want to ask is what I should expect out of my sleep doctor.

I purchased my Airsense 11 from Lofta rather than go through a DME. This apparently is causing an issue where my doctor can't download my CPAP data, neither online nor when I bring the SD card in for an appointment. I have OSCAR installed on my PC, and it has no trouble reading the data from the SD card.

That frustrates me, but it maybe is a moot point, because my doctor doesn't seem to be interested in analyzing the more granular data anyway. He said that all he needs is essentially the data seen by the myAir app, showing averages per night for usage, seal, events etc. At my appointment he even asked to look at my phone so he can see the myAir app data since he had no other way to see it.

The tl;dr of my CPAP issues is that my usage is around 2-3 hours per night for the past 2 months. I feel worse than before I started CPAP and I'm exhausted and frustrated. I feeI wear it when I go to sleep but I consistently take it off either on my sleep, or when I get up to pee. I've been trying many things to address it which I could detail later and share my OSCAR data, in a separate post as needed.

But what I want to ask first is: is it too much to expect my doctor to review my data at the level of detail OSCAR provides? Do I need to find a different doctor that can actually see and download my data and will put in more effort? I need more support, but I don't know how to get it. Thanks in advance.

rtbick wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 04, 2026 12:18 pm

is it too much to expect my doctor to review my data at the level of detail OSCAR provides? Do I need to find a different doctor that can actually see and download my data and will put in more effort? I need more support, but I don't know how to get it. Thanks in advance.

No, not at all. Are you willing to pay him $100s per hour to take a few hours to read it in detail?

Doctors, are not provided the same level of detail that OSCAR provides. Doctors are also unwilling to gibr clinical advice on unvetted software.

But the question is, why do you want a doctor who is inexperienced reading detail data to read your detail data.

I wish I could be more helpful!!!

I hated cpap from the start (still do to some degree), but I was able to use for 5+ hours a night from the beginning.

It's my experience most sleep doctors just want to document compliance (> 4 hours per night), and AHI < 5. They don't look at or care about the other data.

I went through 3 doctors telling me "your AHI is less than 5, keep up the good work, see you back in a year". When I complained that in many ways I felt worse than before cpap, I got "you just have to hang in there, it will get better".

It was only after finding support from other users both local and online, changing my settings myself, and eventually upgrading to an aircurve (for higher pressure support to address flow limits) that I finally started to feel better.

I never did find a sleep doctor who was any real help. My PCP writes my script for supplies.

I encourage you to post your data here, people are generally pretty helpful! And read through the old stuff, there are people who have worked through mask tolerance issues, and shared their experiences.

Good luck!!

rtbick wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 04, 2026 12:18 pm

But what I want to ask first is: is it too much to expect my doctor to review my data at the level of detail OSCAR provides? Do I need to find a different doctor that can actually see and download my data and will put in more effort? I need more support, but I don't know how to get it. Thanks in advance.

welcome to the zoo! you'll get the support you need right here. just post the images with your questions and you'll get answers.