Just got an APAP

turbosnore - without having additional information about your titration, i would venture to say that (assuming everything else with the therapy is going well - leaks under control, good mask fit, good hosemanagement, etc), either your bottom pressure is too low, or you need to try fixed CPAP (OR it's too high but that's only valid if you are prone to central apnea's or complex SBD). Either way you can do a self-titration at home by changing the pressure and leaving it at that for one week and monitoring how you feel. You can do this for a few weeks , slowly raising the pressure by 0.5cm or 1cm and seeing how you feel.

The best is of course to get the HW/SW. I live in Europe and also have to get my eqipment through the hospital. They wouldn't even give me a FFM, so off I went to cpap.com. I got my P&B 420E APAP from cpap.com as well, along with the SW and cable. It can be pricey, but for me it was worth it. In any case, at the rate the insurance was charging me to rent the bare-bones CPAP (no data capability) plus crappyclassic mask, after 3 years of renting I would have paid the equivalent of what it cost me to purchase the 420E+HH+SW, so the decision was a no-brainer.

All that said, there could be other health issues that could be causing continued tiredness. GERD and medications can mess with your sleep (architecture), and other conditions like thryoid, diabetes, ...., can continue to make you tired even if the xPAP is working well. It took me over one year to finally be convinced that my xPAP therapy was working, but that it was the night-time GERD that was screwing with my sleep (actually it took me almost a year to find the right pressure, but that's another story).

Thanks, the main piece of information I needed was whether or not I have a way to get the data reading
HW and SW without prescription. About the price etc. is secondary in the sense that it doesn't matter if I can't
get the goods. I seems to be a bit complicated to get the prescription, because they are lending the xPAP
machine to me free. They would probably start asking about the reason, and they wouldn't be glad to hear
about getting the reader and/or tampering with the settings.

To echo: I think I don't have GERD. How could I find out?
I'm not on any king of medication.
It's just that I used to sleep better (at least when I had the chance to sleep long) before the xPAP
got into the picture. Now I can sleep 9 to 10 hours two nights in a row and I still be tired.
I'm convinced that this treatment is helpful to me, I just have to get the settings right.
It's hard to do when you have no data, and the doctors are not so interested. I think they are ready
to sacrifice my sleep for oxygen saturation level. At least it feels like that. And I guess the reason is
that bad oxygen level is easy to measure where ever, but bad sleep quality doesn't leave physical traces.

turbosnore wrote:And I guess the reason is
that bad oxygen level is easy to measure where ever, but bad sleep quality doesn't leave physical traces.

So true!!!
(EDIT: Actually NOT true, but it's more complicated to measure or detect the side effects of bad sleep quality, especially if you dont do another PSG).

For GERD- i believe the best way to find out is to get an endoscopy - where they put an optical scope down your throat all the way to your stomach. If there is damage in the esophagus, it will most likely be from the GERD. Perhaps they have other ways of telling, I'm not really sure. "Silent GERD" has been mentioned many times on the forum.

As far as I know you don't need a prescription to get the card reader and sw. Just make sure your existing machine IS truly data capable.

turbosnore - I just looked up the software and reader for your machine on cpap.com. The Card Reader is - Resmed Rescan Smart Card Reader for S8 and S8 11 Machines - $69.95 US dollars. The software is Rescan Version 3.3 - $145.95 US dollars.

I am assuming there is a data card in your machine. I see that your machine is data capable.

Slinky will know if this is right but I looked up your machine on cpap.com and that's the info I get.

Again, I don't know about shipping and exchange. Hope this helps.

turbosnore, if you decide you want the reader and the SW before the end of the year, you can have it shipped to a US address for free (to a relative of mine) (cpap.com ships for free if the order is > $100), and I can bring it back to Europe and ship it to you. I think last time I checked it would have cost me $100 to have something shipped to Europe (but it might be less since your package would be much smaller). I can probably ship it to you for 20 euro or so. PM if interested.

Well, i'm just finding out if that is possible. I guess it won't happen this year, but I'm grateful for the info.
I have been thinking about another possibility too: making my own device for collecting the data.
The good side of the latter is that docs just can't interfere with it. The bad side is the amount of work.
I'm not even sure if it's feasible. The flow measurement seems to be a bit difficult.

Also RG sent me the manual, and I may find out something without the HW/SW.
Also the sleep clinic may still replace my current machine with another.

Anyway, I needed to know if buying the HW/SW is an option at all for me.
Lots of thanks for the offer though, but it is just not the time yet.

BTW, if I had GERD should I experience heartburn or something from time to time?

Still another question, I've seen the abbreviation "LOL" here every now and then.
What is meant by it? The meanings I have come across are "Laughing Out Loud" and "Lots Of Luck", but they
doesn't seem to fit into the context. Is there a 3rd meaning?
( My English better getting? Yes?)

turbosnore wrote:BTW, if I had GERD should I experience heartburn or something from time to time?

People can have "Silent GERD" -- experiencing none of the obvious symptoms.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/516189

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 080008.htm

turbosnore wrote:Still another question, I've seen the abbreviation "LOL" here every now and then.
What is meant by it? The meanings I have come across are "Laughing Out Loud" and "Lots Of Luck", but they
doesn't seem to fit into the context. Is there a 3rd meaning?
( My English better getting? Yes?)

Your English is excellent!

"LOL" or "lol" means "Laughing out loud." Like this:

Thanks for the links RG. Could it indicate anything if I took a pepcid before going to sleep?