New to CPAP

I have been using CPAP for about a week now. I am a narcoleptic, and have been struggling to sleep more than 4 or 5 hours at a time for more than a decade. When my primary care manager finally referred me out to a sleep doc the first thing the sleep doc said was "you have OSA." Just from talking to me, looking at me, and measuring my neck. One Polysomnogram and Multiple Sleep Latency Test later it was obvious I had no apnea, mild hypopnea, and narcolepsy. I ended up switching doctors because the first one had ZERO idea how to treat anyone who didn't have OSA.

Things were going fine with my new doc until I had to change stimulants due to a bad reaction. Adderall XR just doesn't cut it as well, and I had to stop taking the antidepressant that I was taking at night as a REM blocker because I started to develop symptoms of Serotonin Syndrome. My sleep doc ordered another sleep study, and confirmed that I still had no apnea, mild hypopnea (AHI=9), and that after about 5 hours I just didn't stay asleep even though I was in a pitch black room. He said that normally he wouldn't even consider treating and AHI of 9 especially since my O2 saturation stayed above 95% the whole time, but considering my inability to stay asleep maybe CPAP would help.

I have a REMSTAR Series 60 AutoPAP with a heated humidifier and heated hose. I started with the Amara full face mask, but kept getting red marks on my nose despite putting the mask on my face as loosely as possible. I went back, and got a Nuance and chinstrap, but didn't really like that as the chinstrap would come off in the middle of the night, and I was constantly waking up to readjust the nose pillows. So I guess I will try the Amara again with the mask liners that my DME gave me a sample of when I got the Nuance. If the liners work a trip to the fabric store to find some knit cotton in the appropriate weight, and a small wheel cutter are in my future.

I do have to say that the first several nights that I used the Amara were amazing. I actually slept 6.5-7 hours. A couple of those nights I even slept through the whole night without waking up at all. My AHI has registered as .5-1.1.

My machine has a wireless modem on it, and I can read some basic info online from mysleepmapper.com, but it appears that with the modem it is not saving info on the SD card. I downloaded Sleepyhead, and while there appears to be a number of files on the card. Sleepyhead only downloads the machine info and no usage info.

I have learned a lot just from reading the threads on here already. I wonder if there are any others around here that are in my shoes.

Later,
Scott

Which SleepyHead version did you get? It works with the PR System One 60 Series Auto CPAP all the time.
If you look on the SD card and in the P0 folder (it's in the Pserial number folder) what file types do you see?
With the 60 Series Auto CPAP (model 560) there should be 3 different file types
xxx.001
xxx.002
xxx.005
Do you have those? If so you should be able to see the detailed data.
I wonder if you got the older version of SleepyHead that needs the Patch file to read the data from the 60 series machine. Anything older than 0.9.3 requires a Patch file.
0.9.6 is the latest version.

I am running Linux. I have V0.9.2-1. I haven't found any newer versions for Linux, or any patchfiles.

Ahhh...Linux.

We have a few members with experience with it. Have you checked out the recent thread where it was discussed?
viewtopic/t98625/SleepyHead-096-PreRelease-thread.html
Last 3 or 4 pages I think they talked about building SleepyHead.

I have no experience with anything but Windows versions so I can't help. Sorry.
If you had a Windows computer I could get you the Encore software but if you had a Windows computer you could get Sleepyhead to work and wouldn't need Encore.

You need the Patch for the 60 series machines and I don't know if they ever came up with a Patch for Linux.
If they did it would be discussed in this thread.
Patch thread viewtopic/t83551/SleepyHead-Series-60-Patch-Avail.html

I got it working on my wife's Windows laptop. The numbers bear out what the Respironics website already said. The biggest thing I was looking for was to see what my leaks looked like. Even with the Nuance that seemed to be leaking badly the machine said my leaks were good. My total AHI is less than 2 every night with less than one OA, and mostly hypopnea.

MINItron wrote:I am running Linux. I have V0.9.2-1. I haven't found any newer versions for Linux, or any patchfiles.

the build instructions seem to have vanished from sourceforge...

the closest I can find is this link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1937358

replace all the qt4 references with qt5 as a starting point.

there's not much love for us linuxers at the moment

Maybe a silly question, but you DO realize that there are loads of different masks out there? The Amara is not one of the popular ones however, and you might want to think about trying some others before investing in long term liners.

I agree with Julie.
If all your DME offers are Respironics masks, know that there are other
companies--and dozens of other masks.
Many people don' t find the right mask for their face within the first handful.
It took me over 20!

My DME is helpful, but tends to push towards Respironics. I used one of the REMZZZS liners from the sample that he gave me last night. I felt like I had a leak by my chin, and I still had red marks on my forehead, despite having the mask fitted as loosely as possible, but there were no red marks on my nose this morning. I will look at my data when I get home tonight. If the leak data bears out then I will continue down this path. I may look into a different full face though. I wish that they had the Airfit F10 in stock. That is the one that I tried at the doctors office. I may just have them order it after all since it doesn't have the forehead bar. It seemed to fit over my ridiculous schnooz better.

As far as the mask liners go. I don't really see myself buying them in the long term when I am perfectly capable of making them myself. A piece of knit cotton washed to remove the lint, and cut to fit is easy days.

MINItron wrote:I have been using CPAP for about a week now. I am a narcoleptic, and have been struggling to sleep more than 4 or 5 hours at a time for more than a decade. When my primary care manager finally referred me out to a sleep doc the first thing the sleep doc said was "you have OSA." Just from talking to me, looking at me, and measuring my neck. One Polysomnogram and Multiple Sleep Latency Test later it was obvious I had no apnea, mild hypopnea, and narcolepsy. I ended up switching doctors because the first one had ZERO idea how to treat anyone who didn't have OSA.

Things were going fine with my new doc until I had to change stimulants due to a bad reaction. Adderall XR just doesn't cut it as well, and I had to stop taking the antidepressant that I was taking at night as a REM blocker because I started to develop symptoms of Serotonin Syndrome. My sleep doc ordered another sleep study, and confirmed that I still had no apnea, mild hypopnea (AHI=9), and that after about 5 hours I just didn't stay asleep even though I was in a pitch black room. He said that normally he wouldn't even consider treating and AHI of 9 especially since my O2 saturation stayed above 95% the whole time, but considering my inability to stay asleep maybe CPAP would help.

I have a REMSTAR Series 60 AutoPAP with a heated humidifier and heated hose. I started with the Amara full face mask, but kept getting red marks on my nose despite putting the mask on my face as loosely as possible. I went back, and got a Nuance and chinstrap, but didn't really like that as the chinstrap would come off in the middle of the night, and I was constantly waking up to readjust the nose pillows. So I guess I will try the Amara again with the mask liners that my DME gave me a sample of when I got the Nuance. If the liners work a trip to the fabric store to find some knit cotton in the appropriate weight, and a small wheel cutter are in my future.

I do have to say that the first several nights that I used the Amara were amazing. I actually slept 6.5-7 hours. A couple of those nights I even slept through the whole night without waking up at all. My AHI has registered as .5-1.1.

My machine has a wireless modem on it, and I can read some basic info online from mysleepmapper.com, but it appears that with the modem it is not saving info on the SD card. I downloaded Sleepyhead, and while there appears to be a number of files on the card. Sleepyhead only downloads the machine info and no usage info.

I have learned a lot just from reading the threads on here already. I wonder if there are any others around here that are in my shoes.

Later,
Scott

You need to tell the DME to get you the Amara GEL. They redesigned the frame and cushion on that one and it is far, far better than the original plain clear silicone version which many, many, many, many people have complained of that design problem. There is no cut-out at the nasal bridge on the original cushion (bad design flaw) so it can press onto the nose. The Gel version is slightly different, but made of thicker, squishier gel material. If you want to save a few $$ then just ask for the Gel cushion alone and you can simply pop it into the Amara frame in place of the original. For me the plain Amara cushion rendered the mask unusable, but the Gel version turned it into a very stable, comfy, almost leak free mask, even at higher pressures.

Good luck.

hyperlexis wrote: You need to tell the DME to get you the Amara GEL. They redesigned the frame and cushion on that one and it is far, far better than the original plain clear silicone version which many, many, many, many people have complained of that design problem. There is no cut-out at the nasal bridge on the original cushion (bad design flaw) so it can press onto the nose. The Gel version is slightly different, but made of thicker, squishier gel material. If you want to save a few $$ then just ask for the Gel cushion alone and you can simply pop it into the Amara frame in place of the original. For me the plain Amara cushion rendered the mask unusable, but the Gel version turned it into a very stable, comfy, almost leak free mask, even at higher pressures.

Good luck.

I actually have the blue gel cushion version in the large size. It still rides tight on the bridge of my nose. I also have problems with the headgear wanting to slide down the back of my head. My pressure is actually quite low, 5-7 most of the time.