Self Diagnosing need help reading and using machine

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Hi - well, have you used the machine at all yet? Results?

What masks are you using? Do you like one more than the other? Why?

Not asking all this for nothing... it matters and when you answer we can go to the next step...

please stay in this thread so we can make sense of it all. Thx!

Welcome, DD! A quick question, because the answer will tell us the best next steps for you to try.

Would you look at the front of your machine and see what word you see at the bottom right? In particular, is the word "Autoset" there? It's important to get the exact word.

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Please go to the top of the main pg here, download (it's free) Oscar and follow instructions re how to post results - it's important to include certain graphs, but not others, and please don't include pie charts or the calendar. Then post 1-2 nights after you have adjusted the minimum pressure to 5 or 6 - not more - and leave the max at 20. Don't bother with the ramp feature. Once that's all done, we can see what's what, interpret for you and suggest any tweaks that might need doing.

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Feeling you're not getting enough air is caused by too low minimum pressure.

The problem is, we don't know that you even have sleep apnea. Normally for someone who has been diagnosed, I would suggest a pressure range of about 7-14 and then see where the machine wants to go.

But if we are trying to determine whether you have apnea, we want to set your minimum pressure as low as possible and then we might see responses from the machine and other key indicators. But it's possible that one might not see responses, because the pressure is high enough to treat.

So given 4 is too uncomfortable, let's try 5.

Ensure you have an SD card in place.

You're going to need to get a Clinician Manual, and learn how to get into clinician mode.

You can request one here:
https://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap- ... tup-manual

The first thing you will want to do in clinician mode is to erase the previous owners data and reset to defaults.


I would set it up as follows:


Mode: AutoSet
Max Pressure: 14.0
Min Pressure: 5.0 - Or initially the lowest possible you can tolerate.
Mask: Pillows

I'm a firm believer that eventually we want to set the maximum pressure to 20, the philosophy being, let the machine go where it needs to go. But during the early days of therapy, let's cap the maximum. I think it's more important that we do everything we can to increase the success of sticking with therapy. That may mean preventing required pressure, even if it's not optimal yet.

As you become more tolerant to therapy, we can increase the maximum. And we can adjust the minimum based on pressure needs, from future posted graphs.


Response: Standard
Ramp Time: Auto
Start Pressure: Just slightly below you minimum pressure say 4.8

Normally ramp is a comfort feature, and at such low pressures you don't need it for comfort. But we can take advantage of ResMed's Auto Ramp feature and use it to tell when you've fallen asleep.


EPR: On
EPR: Fulltime
EPR Level: 3

This turns on Exhale Pressure Relief, drops the pressure while exhaling by 3 centimetres. Helps breath out while new, many including me, still use it.


Climate CTRL: Auto (if heated hose), otherwise 4
Tube Temp: Auto (if heated hose)

This sets the humidity to medium and will adjust the heated tube temperature to reduce the potential for condensation. This s a comfort feature and depending on how you feel we may want to increase or decrease humidity.


AB Filter: No

You don't have an anti-Bacterial Filter.


Essentials: Plus

This increases detail of information presented and allows all comfort settings to be adjusted without entering clinical mode.


SmartStart: On

This allows device to turn on by breathing deeply into mask and off should it detect you're not attached any more.


Then after your first night, describe how your feel, post some graphs and we can start tweaking. Your first few days are likely not to be indicative of your usage as you get accustomed to things so there may not be much to change initially.

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DDWills95 wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 05, 2020 3:17 pm

Mine did not come with a SD card? What type would I need to buy?

Any modern full size SD card. Just get the cheapest available.

You may want to consider putting off trying CPAP until you have it.

Without the SD card we won't get the detail data and OSCAR graphs required to look at your results.

There is no need to limit the max pressure to 14 and it could even be counterproductive as might an EPR of 3, which I'd only use at 1 when starting out as you may not need it at all. Please just try things as I suggested and you can always change things along the way.

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Well, what do the instructions say? I haven't read them recently and don't use Oscar myself... maybe Pugsy'll be around soon with answers.