I said to the insurance person: "Just to clarify: a prescription for "cpap" gives the DME latitude to give me an auto-titrating machine, right? Same Medicare code regardless of which machine I get... right?" She said "that's right-- but I don't know any DME that will dispense an auto-titrating machine unless the doctor specifically requests it." I guess I have been led astray by my CpapTalk healthcare team.mgaggie wrote:Unfortunately some medical personnel think the average person is a mushroom... feed us s**t and keep us in the dark.
At any rate, thanks for the advice. Here's where I'm at on this now:
Got my study results, and it says AHI of 11, RDI of 21. So I have mild SDB in terms of the AHI, but I must have had a few RERAs thrown in as well (I'm glad I got my results, because the technician who gave me my baseline results verbally before the titration study just said "you are waking 21 times per hour"-- I THOUGHT she meant my AHI was 21.
Anyway, the titration study said I should use 10cm. And in terms of AHI, that works great. But in terms of sleep quality, it makes me wake up with horrible gas. If I change the pressure to 8cm, the aerophagia gets better, but even after a full 8 hours of sleep I don't feel well-rested. In fact, I'm downright cranky and tired. And I'd swear I have awakened with a snort while flat on my back a few times that I can remember. Last night I used 8cm, taped my mouth for the first time, and I was able to get through the night with only waking up once (because of a thunderstorm) and the tape worked. Still tired and cranky, but I didn't do the mouth breathing thing. Maybe my next step is to slowly increase pressure and see if I can work up to 10cm? EPR is at 3, and ramp doesn't seem to make any difference.
Wish I had an advocate or resource nearby to just talk to about this stuff. I really don't know what I'd do without this group.