Old equipment

Just found this forum; great resource. I've been on the Cpap for a little over 9 years. On my second unit which is a ResMed Escape II (I believe this is an S8) with a H4i humidifier. I've just read the negative comments on the S8 and would like to know more. I'm 70 and still need to use the system at night. I have the Swift FX nasal pillow which is ok but I get a lot of condensation. Is the S8 really not as efficient as it should be?
Thanks, any advice would be appreciated
Bill

The S8 blows air great. It just doesn't have any data available to help monitor therapy effectiveness.
It is older technology but as far as blowing air...does a great job.
Newer machines are more quiet..have the option for the heated hose (which would/could potentially help with the condensation in your nasal pillows).

If you are feeling great...sleeping great and your only issue is the condensation in the nasal pillows...probably no urgent need to change as there are other ways to deal with condensation in the nasal pillows.
See this thread...either post number 2 or 3 for ways to deal with condensation in the mask.
viewtopic/t94035/Pugsys-Pointers-3Deali ... -road.html

My first suggestion would be to use the Padacheek barrel cozy. Before the heated hose was available...it saved me untold grief battling rain out in the nasal pillows every winter...plus it feels so good on the skin I wore it year round.
http://www.padacheek.com/PACSwiftII_Barrel_cozy.html

But read the above linked thread where I went in to detail about the various options for controlling rain out..you have several now that you can do with the S8 you have.
Should you ever get one of the newer model machines..make sure to get the optional heated hose.

Thanks for your reply. I do have a nightly problem with condensation in the hose and nasal pillow plus I'm experiencing an afternoon slump or lack of energy.

There are some things you can do to maybe help with the condensation issues...my thread linked above pretty much covers all those options. I used a machine for 3 winters where I battled condensation and then got a heated hose machine and never looked back.

If you were in the market for a new machine...would you be using your own funds to purchase or would you be wanting insurance to cover it?....or are you even eligible for a new machine from your insurance?

Since you aren't feeling so great in the afternoon we don't have any way with the S8 to evaluate your therapy.
Now your fatigue in the afternoon may not even be related to your sleep apnea or therapy effectiveness. Having a full data machine doesn't always give us nice clear cut answers to why we don't feel so great..but at least it's a starting point to try to figure out what might be going on.

We also look at how many hours a person is averaging??? And are those hours fragmented by wake ups and you already mention issues with rain out so we know that is a possible issue.
Fragmented sleep will significantly affect how we feel during the day...8 hours a night with 30 wake ups a night..going to feel like crap for sure.
Meds...often meds have side effects that affect how we feel during the day or even our sleep quality.

There's so much more to feeling good during the day than using a cpap machine and not looking at the data or other possible causes for feeling less than optimal.
Since you don't have data available we have to skip the data review and go to the hours of sleep and meds questions.

If you are going to actively want to get a newer machine...we can talk about that once we know if you are self pay out of pocket or you are wanting insurance to foot the bill.

How much of a techie guy are you? Are you up to learn to use a computer program to read your data, learn the technology, medical stuff, etc.?

You can do it yourself and find a good current model used CPAP machine from Craigslist for a few hundred dollars.

Depending on your insurance, you may not have to pay too much to get updated, but that can be a bit of a rat race, too.

It's good to have another machine around in case you have problems with your old machine.

There is a lot of information on what model to get in my signature line.