new and need help

i recently went for sllep test and after 5 hours of not being able to fall asleep(just short nods followed by not breathing and then awake) i left the study very disappointed.the tech told me they neede 2 hours of recorded sleep so that they can deternine my treatment,but i don't fall asleep,i became clostrophobic and confinr=ed and i went home.i thought that it was awful that right there in the other room was the machine i needed and they woukdn't hook it up to give me some relief i so dearly need.in the mean time i have bought my own machine but of course i don't know how to set it. anybody have any ideas,they must have recorded some info at the sleep test,should i ask them to help me set it?????

I'm not one of the true experts on this site, but here's what i think. They do need to analyze the recorded brain activity to determine whether your brain went into different levels of sleep, and whether you slowed down or stopped breathing, causing your brain to become "aroused" from sleep- to a more awake state. But you should be getting together with your doctor to go over the results.

Many people don't believe they slept much during the test. But in actuality, they do sleep enough for a diagnosis.

Your doctor would then send you back to the sleep lab for another test, where they put the cpap machine on you. This study is called the "titration", where they ramp up the pressure slowly, to determine the optimum pressure that is most beneficial to you.

If you ask them to help you "set up" a cpap machine (without doing the above process), they probably will NOT. They must go through the necessary steps.

I only got around 45 min sleep in my sleep study but it was enough for the pulmonologist to recommend being put on an apap and scheduling a titration study in which a sleeping aid was prescribed. That was a year ago and I am thankful for it. The needing 2 hrs is BS keep pushing them.

Johnny, several of our forum members have self-titrated successfully. Not the ideal situation, but it can work. There are some potential pitfalls, of course, but it might be worth trying. What does your doctor recommend? What machine do you have?

The two hours deal was a Medicare requirement a few years ago. It has been changed and if you are bad enough they don't need two hours. The Medicare rule is that if you had slept for a total of two hours with no more respiratory events, would your AHI qualify for CPAP. Real simple 15 or more qualifies, 5 to 15 qualifies with certain comorbidities such as hypertension, heart attack, stroke, or hypersomnolence.

I'm very surprised that they didn't offer you a sleeping pill. My Doctor encouraged it and I had one both on the initial sleep study and the titration.
I'm not sure I would have slept very well without one.

I think they should figure out how to get you back in and sleeping this time. Talk to your Doctor.

I had a split sleep study in August this year and the tech told me if I didn't fall to sleep within 45mins they'd give me an Ambien.
I'm surprised they let you go that long without giving you something.

Perhaps you can find an accredited home test. There are some very good home testing units out there, approved by Medicare and other insurers. Some of them are very easy to sleep with--just two probes on two fingertips. You'd be in your own bed, your own sleeping conditions--and you will be able to get an accurate picture of whether or not you even have sleep apnea.

I know there are people here who will tell you how to home titrate, but you owe it to yourself to figure out FIRST if you really have sleep apnea. Your symptoms can be many things, and while sleep apnea is likely, you need to be sure something else isn't going on and, if diagnosed, the type of apnea you have is important in the treatment decision.

So, you have some homework to do. Call around to sleep specialists within a reasonable distance from your home (you may have to travel and hour or so to find what you need) and ask if they do home testing OR will work with someone who was not successful on the first attempt of in lab testing so you may need something like a sleep medication.

IMHO, it's foolish to start using a machine and try to self-titrate when you don't really know if you have apnea, what kind of apnea you have if you have it, and I don't get the sense from your post that you understand enough about this to understand the process of self-titration--you would be doing yourself a great disservice making very uneducated guesses.

johnny723sleep wrote:...

You have my sincere sympathy! Sounds miserable. In my sleep study, I managed to fall into very light sleep for a few mins over 2 hrs with lots of events and snoring they described as "profound" They put the mask on and even with problems with pressure, I slept, blessed sleep. I sure hope you are able to get some help, the falling asleep & immediately waking up...yikes...maybe next time, they'll let you have an Ambien so they can get the sleep data they need to properly diagnosethe sleep problem and your ideal pressure or pressure range. Good luck!