CPAP Tester..

Hello all, I have been having very disturbed sleeps the last months and people were telling me I snore really loud, so a friend suggested me to try to use a C-PAP. Borrowed a device and a mask from a friend who sells these devices (Sandman Auto device), set it to work 6-12 and have been using it the last 3 days. I have seen results during the day, since I do wake up more easily and feel more relaxed during the day, however, I need to now whether I really need the device at the moment. I have checked the on screen information of the device and average pressure it works at night is between 5.8 and 6.2 & AHI is between 0.8 and 2.0. Tonight I'm taking the device to my friend's in order to download data and check the details.
I'm 26 and when I consulted a doctor he said I'm young anyway to have a device at home. Whats your opinion?
I know C-PAPs shouldn't be used without prescription, but since I had the chance I wanted to check myself first. May someone help me which variables to check on the downloaded report to check if I really need the device? Is there a way for example to check from the report whats my real AHI (I assume the one on the device is the 'treated' number, right?)?
Thanks in advance!

My advice is to get a new doctor! There is no "too young" for sleep apnea (or too thin, for that matter). That kind of thinking leaves people undiagnosed for a decade or more.

AMEN, Mellabella! AMEN!

GeoPal, do you have insurance or not? If so, does your insurance require a referral to a specialist from your PCP or can you go to a specialist on your own?

Call your insurance company, ask them what local sleep clinics or labs they are contracted with, what local DME CPAP suppliers they are contracted with, what your DME benefits are: copays, deductables?

If you don't need the referral call a couple of sleep labs in your area and ask for an appointment. Some will require a referral but many won't.

Some sleep labs/hospitals offer a home apnea detector such as ApneaLink but there are more sleep disorders than just OSA and an in-lab sleep study really is the best way to go so that ALL sleep disorders you might be subject to are detected.

I agree that your doctor is quite possibly an idiot.......at least when it comes to sleep apnea.
Yes, a full-blown sleep study will possibly discover other issues you may have, like Central sleep apnea, Restless Leg Syndrome, oxygen desaturations, etc., etc. HOWEVER......if I were going to go through this again and knew that I only had OSA, I would have tried to bypass the medical establishment and (somehow) bought a data-capable CPAP/Auto-CPAP and kept this Sleep Apnea information OUT of my medical records. It hasn't been a problem yet, but the way things are going, you just never know.......

Den

Thanks for your replies. All your comments are true, however my query, is whether i can reach any results about my OSA by the data the device collects during night. Of course, through their software.

geopal wrote:Thanks for your replies. All your comments are true, however my query, is whether i can reach any results about my OSA by the data the device collects during night. Of course, through their software.

If that machine shows the same type of information as the 420E, then "yes", you should get some information about your nightly breathing.

Den

geopal wrote:Thanks for your replies. All your comments are true, however my query, is whether i can reach any results about my OSA by the data the device collects during night. Of course, through their software.

IF your friend has the Sandman software you should get detailed data about how you slept. Keep in mind that AHI of .8 is the AHI result FROM treatment. Your AHI would most likely been a lot higher without the machine. Since you indicate the pressure moved in a range that is an indicator that the machine saw something.

How high your pressure is has no bearing on the severity of your OSA. OSA doesn't go away, not using the machine you starve your brain of oxygen, after a few years of that it starts clogging arteries and killing off brain cells.

You indicate the machine displays AHI, does it display individual events like AI: and HI:?

(SUM together they equal AHI).

Snoredog wrote:

geopal wrote:Thanks for your replies. All your comments are true, however my query, is whether i can reach any results about my OSA by the data the device collects during night. Of course, through their software.

IF your friend has the Sandman software you should get detailed data about how you slept. Keep in mind that AHI of .8 is the AHI result FROM treatment. Your AHI would most likely been a lot higher without the machine. Since you indicate the pressure moved in a range that is an indicator that the machine saw something.

How high your pressure is has no bearing on the severity of your OSA. OSA doesn't go away, not using the machine you starve your brain of oxygen, after a few years of that it starts clogging arteries and killing off brain cells.

Snoredog is telling you right, geopal. Keep using that machine as long as your friend lets you. If he needs to take it back, get him to help you find another machine and keep using that for the rest of your life. You are soooooo lucky (and so smart!!) to have started treating yourself. Even without a doctor or a sleep study.

Since you already have felt results for the good, I'd be inclined to stay under the radar and keep self-treating without a sleep study, if I were you. Just as Den said:

Wulfman wrote:HOWEVER......if I were going to go through this again and knew that I only had OSA, I would have tried to bypass the medical establishment and (somehow) bought a data-capable CPAP/Auto-CPAP and kept this Sleep Apnea information OUT of my medical records.

Good luck, geopal. What you're doing can work. Did and does for me.
viewtopic.php?p=5977#5977 My story
http://www.apneasupport.org/viewtopic.php?p=7956 My sleep study

Wulfman wrote:

geopal wrote:Thanks for your replies. All your comments are true, however my query, is whether i can reach any results about my OSA by the data the device collects during night. Of course, through their software.

If that machine shows the same type of information as the 420E, then "yes", you should get some information about your nightly breathing.

Den

As far as i know, yes, it shows same details and even more... Which graphs should i check in order to see how i am prior to treatment?

mellabella wrote:My advice is to get a new doctor! There is no "too young" for sleep apnea (or too thin, for that matter). That kind of thinking leaves people undiagnosed for a decade or more.

Ditto.

geopal wrote:

Wulfman wrote:

geopal wrote:Thanks for your replies. All your comments are true, however my query, is whether i can reach any results about my OSA by the data the device collects during night. Of course, through their software.

If that machine shows the same type of information as the 420E, then "yes", you should get some information about your nightly breathing.

Den

As far as i know, yes, it shows same details and even more... Which graphs should i check in order to see how i am prior to treatment?

Any reports produced will be WITH treatment. Even at the lowest pressures, you will be getting "some" treatment, however at the lowest pressures you'd obviously be closest to no treatment.
Presumably, your friend will know what to look for. If you start having events, the machine should start incrementing pressure to take care of them. At some point, you should know something......more events, more pressure needed = more severity.


Den

here is the report of the last 18 days using Sandman Auto. I'd appreciate your comments:

http://rapidshare.com/files/138406581/T ... _.pdf.html

PM me for the password please

geopal:

Thanks for the report, appears Sandman software is nearly identical to reports from Silverlining on the 420e with the exception
being it more clearly defines central events from obstructive. It also now includes Hypopnea (central) in addition to A/CA.

From the data, it appears you have nearly as many centrals if not more depending on the session as obstructive. If you look
at your Synthesis report for 19/08/2008 you will find 49 obstructive apnea for a index/h =1.6 (AH obs) and 94 Centrals (AH cnt) with an index/h 3.0 (includes both central hypopnea +apnea). So in this report data, Central Apnea appears to be the more predominate disorder. However, they don't usually qualify you with Central Apnea unless you get over >10 per hour, so you are not there yet.

The relation of obstructive to central may be with machine settings. It shows your 90% pressure to be 8.0 cm and you do snore. You are starting off at 6.0 cm pressure. With Central apnea being present it sometimes doesn't like rapid pressure changes either up or down. You could help that along by moving your Minimum pressure up a bit from 6.0 to 7.0 or even 8.0 and observe the reports. Currently the machine is set for "fast" Pressure decrease and Command on Flow Limitation is "enabled", toggling of these two features may improve (setting Pressure decrease =slow and Command on FL =disabled). Command on FL is the same as IFL1 on the 420e.

Missing from your report is the 96 hour report as mentioned in the PM. That report better tells you what is happening, in Silverlining you can customize the reports, I don't know if that report was left off your reporting template or not, but it would be nice to see that Detailed 96hr report to help with tweaking of the machine. You basically want to see where those Centrals are showing up and avoid the conditions which allow them to persist. For example if you knew at 9.0 cm centrals appeared you would avoid that pressure if it is known.

While your central count is not all that high, I try to avoid them for better sleep.

Your "Command on Apnea" is currently at default of 10 cm. I see you experimented with 6.0 and 8.0 in the past. If those CA's persist you might want to lower Command on Apnea to 9.0 cm. Again with Centrals you want to avoid applying pressure as it can sometimes make things worse. This parameter says what is the Maximum pressure I can respond to apnea seen? IF at default it says machine can respond to frank apnea at 10 cm pressure or lower, above that it won't respond. In your case you need to find your "CA" threshold or highest pressure you can tolerate before those centrals begin showing up. You can tweak those parameters to lessen the likelihood of pressure causing them. If you lower Command on Apnea from 10 cm to 9 cm, you are telling the machine if my current pressure is at 9.0 or above, don't respond to frank apnea seen. If current pressure is at 8.0 cm and it sees an apnea it will increase it (depending on if it detects cardiac oscillations).

I would invest in the software if I were you, it will more than pay for itself and help you fine tune your machine to your disorder much faster. It will also help you in better understanding your disorder and how to work "with" it.

Your AHI is not bad, machine settings not bad but could probably be tweaked a tiny bit to improve on sleep.

Thanks again for making those reports available, there were a few of us interested in what they looked like. It seems they have fine tuned a few more features on the Sandman Auto, that is a good sign.

The Sandman Auto would be my choice in a new machine and it appears our disorders are similar with the number of CA's seen on your report.

Geopal, did you see this post?

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34136&p=290778#p290778

I tried to PM you but couldn't.

Cheers,
Babette

Hello all again and thank you for your replies then and all PMs sent..

I got another report of the last 2 months, where I've changed the pressure settings and noticed that AHI remains now below 1. I assume that is much much better.

I've been trying to give up smoking but have not succeed yet and hope this will help the whole situation even more.

If anyone would like to check again the updated compliance report please PM me to send you the .pdf file.

Thank you!