Advice to newbies, and Sleepyhead question.

Hi everyone. I joined this forum right before I found out I had severe sleep apnea. I followed it closely for quite a while. Then one day I just couldn't log in and it locked me out! I just requested a new password tonight - and even though it said I'd used too many attempts to log in, this time it let me do so with the additional fill in the numbers block. Yay, I'm back! I want to brag that I've not missed one night of CPAP therapy since the day I got my machine, about 3 years ago. The reason I'm so compliant is because I know that if I don't use the machine, I will stop breathing! Don't want to do that. I had thyroid surgery a couple of years ago, and when they brought me back to my room, I kept setting off the alarms for my oxygen level dropping due to apneas. Once I put on my CPAP machine, I was ok. I'd like to offer encouragement to any newbies. Don't give up. I went through a slew of different masks, and my DME person was getting mad at me. She finally told me to take a bunch home (10) and try them. They had quite a supply of barely used ones that they'd try on you. She gave me a few days to do this, then bring them back with my choice. Soon after I tried the Sleepweaver Advanced. It is so lightweight that you don't know you have it on. It was my favorite for most of the last couple of years. When new masks come out, I often give them a try - always on the quest for the "perfect" mask. I never thought I'd adjust to pillow masks, but surprisingly I have recently, and I find I'm far less congested with them. I don't understand why that is. I also have a lot of stuff I've accumulated and am not using. If there's a spot here to list it, I may do that. Now on to my Sleepyhead questions. I just updated my PC to Windows 10. Thinking that perhaps there was a newer Sleepyhead version, I downloaded it again and I think it overwrote my previous one. Well, not completely knowing what I'm doing, I discovered that when I put my data card back into my CPAP machine, the machine gave me a message to delete all the info on the card. I do not know what happened, as this has never happened before. So, I had to delete the stuff on it or it wouldn't work in my machine. So if anyone knows why this happened, please let me know. I don't want it to keep happening. Does Sleepyhead have updates? I still do not understand all the info on the Sleepyhead graphs. I mostly check for apneas and big leaks. I'm glad to see this forum is still going strong.

2kittymom wrote:Hi everyone. I joined this forum right before I found out I had severe sleep apnea. I followed it closely for quite a while. Then one day I just couldn't log in and it locked me out! I just requested a new password tonight - and even though it said I'd used too many attempts to log in, this time it let me do so with the additional fill in the numbers block. Yay, I'm back! I want to brag that I've not missed one night of CPAP therapy since the day I got my machine, about 3 years ago. The reason I'm so compliant is because I know that if I don't use the machine, I will stop breathing! Don't want to do that. I had thyroid surgery a couple of years ago, and when they brought me back to my room, I kept setting off the alarms for my oxygen level dropping due to apneas. Once I put on my CPAP machine, I was ok. I'd like to offer encouragement to any newbies. Don't give up. I went through a slew of different masks, and my DME person was getting mad at me. She finally told me to take a bunch home (10) and try them. They had quite a supply of barely used ones that they'd try on you. She gave me a few days to do this, then bring them back with my choice. Soon after I tried the Sleepweaver Advanced. It is so lightweight that you don't know you have it on. It was my favorite for most of the last couple of years. When new masks come out, I often give them a try - always on the quest for the "perfect" mask. I never thought I'd adjust to pillow masks, but surprisingly I have recently, and I find I'm far less congested with them. I don't understand why that is. I also have a lot of stuff I've accumulated and am not using. If there's a spot here to list it, I may do that. Now on to my Sleepyhead questions. I just updated my PC to Windows 10. Thinking that perhaps there was a newer Sleepyhead version, I downloaded it again and I think it overwrote my previous one. Well, not completely knowing what I'm doing, I discovered that when I put my data card back into my CPAP machine, the machine gave me a message to delete all the info on the card. I do not know what happened, as this has never happened before. So, I had to delete the stuff on it or it wouldn't work in my machine. So if anyone knows why this happened, please let me know. I don't want it to keep happening. Does Sleepyhead have updates? I still do not understand all the info on the Sleepyhead graphs. I mostly check for apneas and big leaks. I'm glad to see this forum is still going strong.

Welcome back! I am a newbie and my apnea is mild. I did miss a couple days in my first week when I had a cauterization, an allergic reaction to Singulair and a pressure sore from the mask, but it was just 2 days and I've been back on for just over a month. It took the full month but I did find a mask I can live with and my doc was thrilled at the research I'd done and the evidence I could present for how different masks didn't help (and even worsened) the apnea.

I don't have any insight in your SD card problem and I'm still trying to understand a lot about the graphs but I do suggest you post images with any questions about them - folks will certainly chime in (even newbies like me!) and it will also help others who don't understand them.

Thanks for offering your encouragement to all of us!

The SD problem is mainly related to the ResMed machines and the operating system on the computer that is used.
Some Macs and some Windows (8.xx and higher) will write a little file to the SD card and the ResMed machines don't like that little file being on the SD card. In reality it hurts nothing but the ResMed machines expect and exact file structure to be on the SD card and when it deviates the least little bit the ResMed machines will reject the SD card and the "Invalid card message" is the result and the only recourse is to erase the SD card and start over. When you insert the newly erased SD card into the ResMed machine it will write the old stored data to the SD card but that's mainly summary data...all the detailed data graphs are gone from the SD card and machine because the machine doesn't store the detailed data.

Now you should still have that detailed data in the software so it is not totally lost but it isn't on the machine and it isn't on the SD card.

Not much you can do about it except remember to write protect the SD card for future downloads so that the Operating system doesn't add that annoying little file to the SD card.
No way around it that I know of except don't allow the operating system to do anything to the SD card.

In terms of understanding SleepyHead itself. I have a little tutorial thread in the top of the Announcements section of the main forum page. Usually AHI, pressure and leak is really all that needs to be understood.

From now on...be sure to write protect the SD card (slide that little lock thing) before inserting the card to your computer and you will be fine. The most current version of SH is still 0.9.8-1.
Remember to unlock it before putting it back in the ResMed machine though....otherwise you get the message "hey...your card is in write protect mode".