New here - looking for info for my husband

Joe's Wife wrote:I surely want him to get the most benefit from the machine! Of course with my daughter's Insulin pump already eating away at this year's DME $5000 yearly cap, we may have to pay out of pocket for a bare bones model.

In which case you might want to pop over to http://www.cpapauction.com where you can bid on new and used machines at discount prices. You will have to fax or email them your husbands prescription or script before you can bid.

Welcome, good luck and try not to get too overwhelmed with it all. Therapy can take time to get used too but its well worth the effort.

Then accept no less than their least expensive FULL DATA capable CPAP model. If you can't get the software and reader for the data card, you can usually get what you need by reading the machine's display every morning and keeping track of it yourself.

dwsupt wrote:I use a liberty full face mask(covers mouth and has nasal pillows. [snip] it will begin ramping up the pressure to overcome the obstruction. At some point the higher pressure starts my mask leaking,

Hi dwsupt,

I tried the liberty FFM, and it didn't work well for me either (in my case the higher pressure started leakage from the nasel pillows) - so I switched to the quattra FFM and never looked back (it's a little more bulky, but what do i care ... I'm asleep )

Amber,
Welcome to the forum, and congratulations to you and your husband for taking steps to solve his sleep problems! I second Uncle Bob's suggestion to go to cpapauction.com and get the least expensive fully data-capable machine you can find. It'll be worth the money to be able to see data if a problem arises--and there's no way to predict today if a problem will present itself tomorrow! Without data you won't be able to figure out what to do to solve the problem. And many forum members have found that the shenanigans of insurance companies result in paying more for bottom-of-the-line equipment by going to a brick-and-mortar DME than you'd pay by buying on your own from cpap.com or cpapauction.com. Do your research, run your numbers, and get the best equipment you possibly can. An especially tricky hurdle can be mask selection. Masks are very personal, and what works for one might not work for the next guy--sorta like buying shoes. Fit and leak rates can make successful therapy a distant dream, and many forum members tried quite a few masks before finding the one that did the trick.
Good luck, and ask anything you need to. We're here to help.
PS--a side benefit is you'll sleep better when he sleeps better!

I am a new user myself - I have severe sleep apnea of 82 OSA's / hr and my O2 drops to 70% during the night. I have been on therapy for a week now, and the machine is ultra quiet, my wife doesn't even hear it. I do feel different so I am probably one of those who's therapy is going to take longer for me to catch up on my 'sleep debt'! I am a nasal breather, so I use nasal pillows and everything seems to be working well. I just took the attitude that I have to have this - If not, the I am just risking life every time I lay my head down.

Welcome!