Is anyone else surprised by the poll results? They surprise me; not because folks on this forum think their initial titration wasn't quite right, but because of the lopsided results.
I suppose it's questionable whether or not folks here are a representative sample of people with apnea; I personally suspect they're pretty close to being representative, though perhaps a bit more computer literate. Part of the reason I think folks here are representative is that many folks seem to wander into this forum wanting desparately to resolve their apnea problems and then need to be led step by step through basic computer operations to just be able to monitor their progress. (This is a wonderful thing by the way.)
Anyway, the results suggest that the fundamental protocol used by the medical community has a very long way to go to achieve anything close to patient satisfaction (as satisfaction is typically defined for consumer services). My personal experience suggests that this extends to other medical services as well, but I suppose that would be best left for another forum.
Regards,
Bill (thanking everyone for participating in the poll)
How Effective was Your Initial Titration?
Re: How Effective was Your Initial Titration?
I've had seven titrations since my initial one in August of 1999. The wonderful sleep tech I am married to did all but one of them, the one she didn't do was done by my daughter who is also a sleep tech. All were spot on the money. My first CPAP was a Remstar LX. It was changed to an Autoset T due to my OSA being very positional in nature and suffering from severe Aerophagia (CPAP BLOAT). I went from the Autoset T to an S8 auto and now use an S9 auto, loved all of them.
During my 5th polysomnogrophy we did make a major discovery. One must set an upper limit on an autopap, my autos were originally setup with a low end of 8, my actual pressure varies from 11-13 cm, and the top end was left open. We discovered that the autopap and lab test equipment at times would raise as high as 16 cm during an event and that just as the pressure hit 16 cm I developed Centrals. Now my auto is set at 8-15 CM to eliminate this problem.
During my 5th polysomnogrophy we did make a major discovery. One must set an upper limit on an autopap, my autos were originally setup with a low end of 8, my actual pressure varies from 11-13 cm, and the top end was left open. We discovered that the autopap and lab test equipment at times would raise as high as 16 cm during an event and that just as the pressure hit 16 cm I developed Centrals. Now my auto is set at 8-15 CM to eliminate this problem.