Enchanter wrote:
Is it possible to NOT have sleep apnea officially and still benefit from the machine?
Yes. Sleep apnea is one type of sleep disorder but not the only type.
Right now UARS comes to my mind as something cpap is known to help but it doesn't meet official sleep apnea diagnosis criteria.
Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome
That's all that comes to my mind at the moment.
It can be a difficult diagnosis to make though because there aren't easily seen clear cut markers for it. A lot of time it is a diagnosis that is offered because the other usual stuff has been ruled out.
To know for sure with a measurement tool the Pes tool needs to be used.
DON'T go asking me if I think you have UARS...I don't have a clue at this time because we have zero data to form any conclusions from.
Given your history of problems sleeping...I don't think you want to go down the Pes route should it ever come to that. I know I sure wouldn't.
I would simply try the machine first and everything else I could think of.
Robysue has a family situation that sometimes takes a lot of her time...so if she isn't here it's because she only has so much energy to expend and her family comes first and she already gave you a LOT of her energy. I suspect that she simply isn't up to a time consuming interaction with someone right now.
Regarding her telling you that you must have OSA or the tech wouldn't have put a mask on you that first in lab sleep study. That's not exactly what she said because she and I both told you the same thing which is......
in most cases when the mask is introduced during a diagnostic sleep study then we assume that the tech has documented whatever criteria that lab uses to verify the need for the mask/cpap. The criteria can vary among labs. These techs do this enough they know what they are seeing or not seeing....or at least they should.
Without having a copy of that study to see what happened....we are just speculating but in most instances the addition of the mask means you got the OSA diagnosis. So Robysue and I both told you this...that in most situations that's what it means but we told you that it might have been for some other reason. I can't imagine a tech putting a mask on someone without good reason. Given the zero information that we have about any of your studies all we can do is tell you what happens most of the time. Are you an exception? Beats me but we have no way to know.
You are going to have to get the written results of the sleep tests and share with us for anyone here to have a chance of having any sort of rational idea about what is going on with you...and even then I don't know that it will be clear cut but right now asking us if we think you have so and so is pretty useless waste of time to keep coming up with stuff that it is simply impossible for any of us to be able to give you a definitive answer.
And in advance please don't start asking me a bunch of "what if" questions in Robysue's place. I don't have her patience for one thing and pretty much anything I would have told you has already been said by at least a dozen other people so no sense in my repeating it.
And finally I have family coming for an extended visit tomorrow and I won't be spending much time here on the forum for quite a while so I am not taking on any personal consults at this time because I can't devote the time needed to do a good job.
You need to sit down and have a face to face discussion with your DOCTOR...he is the one who ultimately calls the shots. That's the only way to get real definitive answers to your questions.