Question on CPAP use after heart by-pass op.

I had surgery in February... I was at the hospital alone, other than for when a friend came to pick me up. They kept my xpap equipment with me. Other belongings where either locked up by security or delivered to my room. Originally I wasn't supposed to be there overnight but I allowed the anesthesiologist to convince me to stay overnight due to a blizzard that was just starting when I was supposed to go into surgery. The nurse had access to distilled water and filled the machine for me. I told her how to hook it up and we got it set... straps were around my incision. I was groggy but awake enough to walk her through the setup.

Don't worry, especially if it's a big hospital. A lot of nurses and other medical folks have seen xpap equipment. They may not know a lot about it but they know we're supposed to use it and what they need to do to help.

HoseCrusher wrote: You can make up some name tag sized stickers that say "I Use CPAP" and stick one on your forehead and another on your chest. Or, you can take a sharpie and write it on your chest. Whoever looks at you will see this and if it hasn't been added to your chart it may prompt them to add it.

That might make sense for areas of one's anatomy being operated on that is not your heart. Pretty sure your chest is scrubbed clean with powerful antiseptic solutions that actually leaves the scrubbed area orange in color.

Then they open your chest up right down the middle to get at your heart. Stickers or writings on the chest would be totally removed before you get 'cracked' open and the flesh peeled back to expose the heart.

Or, you can take a sharpie and write it on your chest.

Your forearms and back of the hands would be better. That is where the IV's will be and the nursing staff (who will help with your cpap) will see it every time they check the IV's

I totally understand the surgical scrubbing process. The idea is to be somewhat obnoxious in letting them know that you use CPAP. If they have to peel a sticker off or clean writing off it may get the point across. I like the idea of writing it on your arm...

On Monday, July 29th, I had an angiogram and then a stent was put into one of my coronary arteries which was 70% blocked. All went well, and I was discharged from the hospital the following afternoon.

I brought my BiPAP machine with me to the hospital as instructed by my cardiologist, and I used it during my one night's stay in the hospital. Prior to going to the hospital, my average AHI for the 21 days since I got it was at 8.4 My only sleep study AHI was recorded at 39.

Ever since I got my PR S1 home with me, the highest I ever got as an AHI number for was on my first night on it, and that was at 15.1. After that, it has been usually in the range of 8 to 9, with three readings of under 5. The night prior to my surgery while sleeping at home, my AHI was 4.8

But the one night in the hospital I got a reading of 29.2. I did have some IV pain meds in me from the procedure, and they also gave me two Percocet tablets at midnight to help me sleep. I don't know if that had any bearing to my AHI of 29 that night.

My AHI at home last night, the day after my night in the hospital, I got an AHI reading of 5.2 after 10-1/2 hours of very restful sleep in my own bed. Does anyone have any thoughts about that high AHI during my single night stay in a hospital bed?

Lambeau wrote: Does anyone have any thoughts about that high AHI during my single night stay in a hospital bed?

Meds for one thing...stress for another...hospital effect (noise, wakeups, crappy bed, not the best sleep in general either).
What was the breakdown for the high AHI?
I wouldn't be surprised if you had a good number of centrals thrown in...a lot more than usual probably.

I can't give you any breakdown of data other than what is on my PR S1 machine's LCD screen. I have had no luck at all in being able to get Sleepyhead to work on my Mac computer with OS 10.6 using my model PR S1 760 BiPAP machine. Gave up on it, as I did get the SH onto my Mac with the links you provided, but it simply will not give any meaningful information off my SD card. (examples being AHI from anywhere from 1651 up to 2847--- an impossibility).

I can tell you I have had zero leaks every night, and the DME has made one adjustment to the pressures last week, changing it from 4/8 up to 5/9 on the default start up pressures. I sleep very well with the machine and the mask. No problems at all.....I am not even aware I have it on, and get to sleep very quickly now while wearing it.

Lambeau wrote: I can tell you I have had zero leaks every night,

Actually if looking at the LCD screen for leak data what you are seeing is 0% of time in large leak. That's all it shows.
I bet you had some leaks..we all do but you didn't have any that were big enough to register as large leak.

If you want I can pull up the data for that one night in question for you. There are too many files to do all nights but if you can find the session files for that night and send them to me in an email...I can put them on my SD card and fool SH and Encore both into giving you a detailed report for that night.

You just go into the P0 folder and find the files dated the day after you went to bed.
3 file types per session.
xxx.001
xxx.002
xxx.005..this is the wave form file and will be the largest.

When the files are written to the SD card after a session is closed they get tagged with a date modified.
Like last night's data files will have 7/31/13 as the modified date.
Send me a PM if you want me to do it...I need to give you my email addy so you can send those files as an attachment.
Doesn't take much to get it done...I just do a little moving around of the files on my SD card and replace them with yours...get the report...remove your files and put mine back in place.

If unsure about the file dates...we could probably include the day before and the day after and get it done easily enough.