Adjusted my bipap pro.. will they find out?

I have a phillips bipap pro. I've only had it for 2 weeks. I can't stand the thing. Haven't worn it for longer then 30 min a nice. My pressure is very high 11.5 on inhale.

So i got into the special setup menu (wasn't hard at all!), and changed my pressure down to 6. I'm going to see if i can tolerate that tonight, and slowly work my way up to what i can tolerate.

My DME wants me to mail back the data card in a month. When i changed the pressure in the set up it said 'writing to data card'. I'm assuming they will know i have changed the pressure.

Question is what are they going to do? If i changed it, even though i am not supposed to, but it worked out for me.. would they have to report it.. and if they did would insurance then refuse to cover it? If so can i can just get a doctor to write a prescription for the new pressure. I'm sure my dr will just write if. She trusts me.

Yeah yeah i know i'm not supposed to do it, but i'm NOT going thru another sleep study / dr visit just to get a perscription to get them to lower it. When i can lower it with a few clicks on the button myself!

They can give you a tongue lashing I suppose, but it's YOUR therapy, for your OSA, and no one can do anything about it. Who would they report to, the Cpap police? We all change our pressures on occasion, whether or not we tell the doctors, though if you do well on a given pressure, it's probably smart to let them know. What I would worry about in your case is how much you changed it all at once - you could have instead lowered it by increments and tested each one for a few days, that's the scientific method, so you may have outsmarted yourself in a way. Do you not have a data capable machine - i.e. one with a smart card that collects your data and which you can then plug into a (very specific) card reader attached to your computer, which together with the right software will tell you each day all the different aspects of your therapy and how each one is doing? If you have trouble exhaling at 11.5 (not a terribly high pressure BTW) you want to look into a machine with c-flex (or the equivalent in a non-Respironics machine) which helps with exhalation problems, rather than drastically turning it way down to where it can be hard to breathe at all for most of us.

Dan

There can be an up side & a down side to making those sort of changes without consulting your Dr or R/T.

The up side is you are seeking to take your therapy into your own hands so you can progreess as you see it. The down side is that the change you have made may mess up your respiration in ways you don't appreciate.

What will help us help you is to know exactly what mode the machine is set for and what existing (as supplied to you) settings were in effect.

Can you provide that info ?

Good luck with this

DSM