New here with a question

What are the advantages of buying the software for my machine? I don't have an appointment with the doctor for a month to look at the results but how do I know if I am using the cpap right so I will not go to the doctor with a blank sd card?
TIA!

You can tell how effective your therapy is and watch for trends that might mean you need to optimize therapy. For instance, my sleep study AHI was 62, that's my baseline for my untreated OSA. My AHI has averaged 1.4 since I got my APAP with a pressure of 10.4 for 95% of the night; that's lasted until I fell and injured a shoulder requiring I sleep on my back...my pressure started averaging in the 12s and max at 14.6 yikes and my AHI immediately rose...time for change. I upped my initial pressure; I use an APAP with a range set to 8-15, I re-set it to 9-15 and my AHI went down a little bit but I had a lot of leak. So, I figured out my jaw was dropping and that puts downward pressure on my pillows wich then started leaking -- the fix? I found a soft foam cervical collar and now sleep in it...hot but no more leak and ta da my AHI is back down under 2. I would never have known this if I didn't have nightly data.

I agree totally with Muse-Inc. When I went to Denver a few weeks ago the elevation adjustment on my machine didn't work. I looked at the data and saw that my machine was pegged out all night and I had a high AHI. I raised it from 10/13 to 13/16 and had good sleep the rest of the time. Without that information I would have not known why I was tired and would have been tired the whole trip. Also, after the titration at the sleep center my AHI was 14. With looking at the software and doing some simple adjustments (including mask changes), I got my AHI down to around 2.

Trisha, welcome to the forum! Having access to your therapy data isn't an "advantage," it's essential. Monitoring your cpap therapy is similar to monitoring blood sugar levels for diabetes: no doctor would prescribe insulin to a patient with diabetes, tell that patient to return in a month, and not supply a meter for that patient to track their blood sugar levels. That would be stupid, as the patient needs to know rather more frequently than once a month what the levels are so that the diet/medication can be adjusted. Our cpap therapy is exactly the same; we need to monitor our events so that we can tweak our therapy to get the full benefit. You're currently in a position to enrich your life in ways you never thought possible, but it won't happen if your don't monitor your therapy.

Welcome to the forum. I would suggest strongly that you read the WIKI at the top of the page to start with and then read the last 50 to 100 threads over the next few days. They will give you all that you are looking for in terms of aggresively treating your affliction. Do NOT be a sheeple. Get all the data that you are able to and learn how to interpret it. That is probably the only way you are going to reach your 'golden bullet' and get this thing under control. You are also going to need a recording pulse oximeter to record your blood oxygen level while you sleep as ultimately, what you are trying to do is to maintain a level of blood oxygen saturation above 90% to get a good night of sleep and to maintain healthy organs and reduce risk of heart attack, stroke, etc. Lots to take in and plenty on here to help you along the way. Read. Ask questions. First read. And read lots. Again, welcome aboard and good luck in your quest for the golden path to health and well-being. It has taken me ten months to get to where I am presently. Don't let the doc or vendor sell you a machine that does not record data nor a mask for a crazy dollar amount that does not fit you well and in comfort. Look at what folks are using and what their particular needs are. I, for example, use the ResMed S9 Auto and use primarily a Mirage Quattro full face mask to address my mouth breathing (it takes some work getting it set up just right each night so that leaks are nominal). I also wear a fingertip oximeter made by Contec Model 50E and plop that data into the computer as well each morning. While I have been able to adjust my pressure range so that I have pretty much zero events at this point and nominal leakage from my mask, the oximeter indicates that I still have wavering and low SpO2 (blood oxygen) during the night which is very dangerous. I have just started oxygen infusion therapy into my CPAP line and it has done wonders thus far (night two) and we are playing with pressures and oxygen amounts (down to 3L/M tonight). Have not seen the doctor that is ultimately hopefully going to monitor this but in the interim I have had two doctors say "great idea" and a third that has said "they didn't teach me that in medical school". So, figuring that so many on here are using O2 infusion I guessed that it could do no harm and a lot of good.... here we are. O2 infusion and loving it. Instead of plummeting to the 70's regularly I am rarely dropping below 90% and generally hovering just above the 95% range.. hence the attempt at dropping things off some more tonight.

It is a long road and you need to be tough and aggressive... and a tenacious as a pit bull. You will succeed and will likely have highs and lows along the way; I know that I have. The closer you get to the magic bullet the better you will feel and pretty soon you are going to forget what it was like without CPAP so maybe you want to write down what it was like before CPAP in detail so that when you have a bad spell you will realize that it was worse before CPAP began!

Good luck and welcome aboard. You are among friends.

Trisha wrote:What are the advantages of buying the software for my machine? I don't have an appointment with the doctor for a month to look at the results but how do I know if I am using the cpap right so I will not go to the doctor with a blank sd card?
TIA!

Well the advantages are endless. Most of the the time doctors don't suggest we have the software. Sometimes it costs more to have data access abilities, e.g. purchasing the software, sometimes doctors feel we sometimes are constantly pestering them.

Think of a diabetic who needs insulin. They need to monitor their gluclose / blood sugar levels not only on a daily basis but also before and after meals. It's similar for us on CPAP/APAP/BiPAP. Being able to monitor the stats makes sure we don't get into the point where we have a problem with our machines and start becoming dozy and eventually run our cars off the road and kill someone. Maybe that's a bit of an extreme, but can you remember the point in your life where you started to suffer from sleep apnea? Most of us can't pinpoint when it happened because it came on gradually and your body and mind adapted to and thought it was then the norm.

For most of us we only have an annual checkup with our car, and things can go wrong within that year that wouldn't get picked up until the annual checkup. Personally I would recommend having the software even if it's just for piece of mind that you can verify if you feel down, tired, grouchy that it's not to do with sleep apnea from the previous night, it's more that maybe you had less sleep for another reason, you're crabby because you're crabby and you're tired or yawning because you reduced your sleep by 3 hours last night because you had insomnia and not related to sleep apnea.

Thanks
Dave