VPAP III ST-A Alarms Help

I'm having trouble with my vpap III sounding the "ipap lower" alarm maybe 50 times a night. Had to resort to using ear plugs just so I can get some sleep. Seems to have started since the IPAP was changed from 18 to 20. I have a brand new mask and have checked its not leaking there, also checked the pipes, and was given a brand new vpap and still i get this alarm. Are there any settings that needed to be changed when the IPAP was changed?

Current Settings:

Mode: ST
IPAP: 20 (was 18)
EPAP: 6
Resp Rate: 15bpm
Ti Max: 2.0
Ti Min: 0.3
Max I:E: 1:1
Rise Time: 150
Trigger: Med
Cycle: Med
Mask: Mir.Full
SmrtStrt/Stp: Off
Max.Ramp: Off
Start EPAP: 4

All alarms are set to off too. Any suggestions of what to try?

The Vpap III ST-A is usually used in hospitals & clinics because it is fitted with alarms - it is also super expensive because of that (even dearer than a Vpap Adapt SV machine).

But, I believe you can disable the alarms in the way you set them - my guess is that you set the thresholds for the alarm to 0 values.
I believe I have a clin manual for that model & will try to locate it & post a link to a copy. May take a few hours.

Cheers

DSM

#2

Found this manual (courtesy of Rested Gal). I hope it helps (I'll take a look through it later when I get the chance).

http://www.internetage.ws/cpaphelp/manu ... Manual.pdf

D

Thanks for the reply. My machine looks a little different than in that manual, has a large LCD screen like this

http://www.resmed.com/au/products/vpap_ ... c=patients

It says to consult my clinician but they don't seem to know why it's alarming or what to do with it lol

Seano wrote:Thanks for the reply. My machine looks a little different than in that manual, has a large LCD screen like this

http://www.resmed.com/au/products/vpap_ ... c=patients

It says to consult my clinician but they don't seem to know why it's alarming or what to do with it lol

Seano

I have used Vpap III (S & S/T) models but they didn't have the alarms feature. But I have used a Bipap Auto SV (from Respironics) and it did have alarms - one of these alarms used to trigger when flow dropped below a preset threshold. The 1st night I had that machine the alarms were so intrusive I gave up using the machine until the next day when I could figure out how to kill them.

What I discovered back then (couple of years ago now) was that by setting any alarm threshold to 0, the alarm was effectively turned off. In reading thru theVpap III ST-A manual above I get the impression a similar approach may work.

Do you know how to get into Clinical Mode ? (It is the same as doing it on the Vpap III S/T). If you do you should be able to work your way through to the alarms settings & based on the alarm (see the alarm sound codes in the ST-A User's Manual pages 30,31 & 32) you may find a way to set the threshold to 0 & as with the Bipap Auto SV, it may well be how a particular alarm is deactivated.

Here is a link to the Clin Manual for the Vpap III-ST which, apart from the alarms, will have almost identical settings.

Good luck

DSM

http://www.internetage.ws/cpaphelp/manu ... Manual.pdf

Thank you for the help Turns out the reason it was alarming is because the machine wasn't triggering in sync with my breathing. The fix was to set the trigger & cycle settings to low, both were on medium before.