Do your CPAP Needs ever change?

Greetings,
I have been on my CPAP machine now for about 2 1/2 years. Does there ever become a point you ned to be revaluated, ie: have a new sleep study done etc?
Do the values of the air flowing ever need to be changed? Just curious if this is ever needed. I do feel 100% better!!


George Evans

This is a very frequent subject. Look back at several forums for more.
Click on the yellow lightbulb for more info.

For those on plain cpap, there is no way to ever know beyond your own subjective feelings.

Those with apap with monitoring capabilities can have a sleep study every night with documented knowledge of what is going on during your sleep.
One great thing is that you feel so much better and evidently are responding and have an appripriate pressure.
This is all you can know with cpap.
When you need a new machine, I would hope you have learned enough by then to insist on an apap and be better informed.
tomjax- who is constantly logged out trying to make a reply to a post.

Your XPAP needs change daily, depending on how your body reacts to everything that happens to you and what you do daily. CPAP deals with this by using enough pressure to hold your air passages open all night. A correctly set APAP, uses just enough pressure to hold your airway open as needed. If you don't need the top set limit pressure all the time it operates at a lower pressure, using just the pressure you need when you need it.

If time, makes for changes of the required pressure to keep your airway open and your APAP pressure is set high enough it will raise the pressure as needed. With the use of software we can see if the treatment is doing it's job , and make judgements and correction from there. Jim

Software is a nice bonus. BUT - the proof is in the pudding and tells us more than any CPAP data as far as I'm concerned.

If you start feeling tired again, or your bed partner tells you you are stopping breathing in your sleep, etc. then it is time to check in to the local sleep lab again.

I always figger if it "aint'" broke, don't try to fix it. Just be mindful of how "the tireds" snuck up on you prior to CPAP.

bsmokey wrote:Greetings,
I have been on my CPAP machine now for about 2 1/2 years. Does there ever become a point you ned to be revaluated, ie: have a new sleep study done etc?
Do the values of the air flowing ever need to be changed? Just curious if this is ever needed. I do feel 100% better!!


George Evans

Hi George.

Welcome to the forum!

Unless you have other medical issues that would REQUIRE an additional sleep study, my suggestion would be to get a machine that records nightly statistics (assuming that yours doesn't) and the software to monitor it. This would be much less expensive than repeated trips to the doctors and sleep clinics. You can test yourself as often as you desire......like nightly.

In my own case, I was prescribed the wrong pressure of 18 cm, which was way too high. By having the REMstar Pro 2 and the Encore Pro software, I was able to determine that pressures of 10 to 12 would be just fine to treat my condition. I started out (after changing from the prescribed pressure) at a pressure of 10 cm. After 10 months, I decided to increase it a bit (due to an increase in apneas) which has resulted in better therapy. I have determined that my "sweet spot" ranges between 10 and 12 cm.

Many things can affect our nightly therapy.

Best wishes,

Den