a simple open source home based apnea testing machine

I have had apnea for a very long time, I know that now, but did not till, well for real just the last few days, even when they said I did, I had no idea what that meant, not till I started getting out of the fog I was in by using a PAP machine. saying you have apnea to someone is like saying you have lkfgglsalfsadfhj, ok, so what the H is that. there is no real public awareness, no one to say you have this thing and this is what it does to you, the thing is it sneaks up on you and you get used to it, it is the new norm, each and every day you get this new slightly less new norm, till one day you going man this sucks, so they say we can fix, here is a pill. well I am sorry, a pill does not replace a good nights sleep, and a sleeping pill can make the apnea worse as I have been told. so here we are with bug pills so we feel better and sleeping pills so we do not sleep as well, but go to sleep faster and we wonder why we are screwed up and go do something real stupid. it was not till I started coming out of the fog that I even am close to understanding it, and let me tell you I fought kicking and screaming getting this machine, I was in no hurry at all to be tied to some bloody machine and have to deal with it and its problems on top of all my other problems. to say I was reluctant is a huge understatement.

so the point of the above rambling is, how many do we know probably have this and do not know it, and you saying they most likely have it does not make them look into it or do anything about it. OK I have this friend that snores real bad, has for decades, he knows he snores real bad, even knowing all he knows and my saying you need testing and his now having to sleep on his back for other problems making his apnea worse he still refuses to go get tested. he knows things are not good but can not bring him self to do much about it. but he did say he would try my o2 meter and see what it has to say, so he will not go to clinic, but he will let a clinic come to him. it is not much but I will take it, so next we meet I will lone him my meter, I am no sleep doc but I am better then nothing at this point. so maybe if I test him in his home he will then go get a real test and maybe some day realize like I did just how much of his life was wasted by being in a fog.

just saying and hoping there is some way to help others and get more off of bug pills and into living well and healthy lives.

open as always to input

There are home tests but they are not as accurate as an overnight in a sleep center. If a person refuses the sleep center, there is not much you can do about it. It is their health and their choice.

that is in a way like handing keys to a drunk and saying it is there chose if they drive or not, the point is they are not in there right mind to make a good and proper decision. not all that have apnea are highly impaired but someone with sever apnea over along time will be impaired. I know as I was one, and it is not till your on your way out do you know or realize just how deep you were in. I was in a car accident, single car so I was at fault. was I a drunk at the wheel? I could have been, some drunks do make it home with out bending things. the point is I would have argued and got very mad if you had said this to me a week ago. now I am admitting it could have been why I crashed. I would say that is progress. like I said before, it was not till I was getting out of the fog did I realize how deep I was in. now you may have not been as bad for as long and not had this realization of coming out of the fog, but I have and did, I am still not out I know that but I am out enough to know I was in and that is a good thing.

LSAT wrote:There are home tests but they are not as accurate as an overnight in a sleep center. If a person refuses the sleep center, there is not much you can do about it. It is their health and their choice.

space45 wrote:that is in a way like handing keys to a drunk and saying it is there chose if they drive or not, the point is they are not in there right mind to make a good and proper decision. not all that have apnea are highly impaired but someone with sever apnea over along time will be impaired. I know as I was one, and it is not till your on your way out do you know or realize just how deep you were in. I was in a car accident, single car so I was at fault. was I a drunk at the wheel? I could have been, some drunks do make it home with out bending things. the point is I would have argued and got very mad if you had said this to me a week ago. now I am admitting it could have been why I crashed. I would say that is progress. like I said before, it was not till I was getting out of the fog did I realize how deep I was in. now you may have not been as bad for as long and not had this realization of coming out of the fog, but I have and did, I am still not out I know that but I am out enough to know I was in and that is a good thing.

LSAT wrote:There are home tests but they are not as accurate as an overnight in a sleep center. If a person refuses the sleep center, there is not much you can do about it. It is their health and their choice.

Actually depending on where you live, if the doctor suspects you have OSA and you refuse to get treated they can report you to the motor vehicle bureau. In fact I believe in both Quebec and Ontario they are required to do this whether or not you get treated. You then have to prove compliance or lose your license.

what home tests? there is the SleepStrip, but that is all I know of and that has to be by a doc and is disposable one time use only.
what other home testing is there?

also even when my doc got the results from my sleep test back, he did not say one word to me about it, even when I talked to him about it he did not say anything at all. so relying on docs to diagnose and treat sleep apnea is a joke. so that is why I have come up with this idea. even my friend that has sever snoring and most likely apnea has talked to his doc about snoring and has not been sent to a clinic or some other sleep place. his wife move to another room and problem solved, he and his doc are happy. so docs are clueless when it comes to sleep apnea, but the doc did offer my friend bug pills to make him feel better, but like me my friend said no to that.

why are we not tested for sleep apnea when we get and renew our drivers license? you would think that a good thing, I would have welcomed that, well not at the time but when I found out I would feel better for being on the machine I would have been happy they forced me to get tested.

how many less accidents and how many less bug pill scripts would there be with this one simple change? the pharmaceutical industry may collapse if they did that. and how many doc would be out of a job when there is no bug pills to write scrips for and keep on top of, the physiologists would be hit the hardest I would think.

BlackSpinner wrote:

LSAT wrote:There are home tests but they are not as accurate as an overnight in a sleep center. If a person refuses the sleep center, there is not much you can do about it. It is their health and their choice.

Actually depending on where you live, if the doctor suspects you have OSA and you refuse to get treated they can report you to the motor vehicle bureau. In fact I believe in both Quebec and Ontario they are required to do this whether or not you get treated. You then have to prove compliance or lose your license.

LSAT wrote:There are home tests but they are not as accurate as an overnight in a sleep center. If a person refuses the sleep center, there is not much you can do about it. It is their health and their choice.

So in the lab they very often have to use seditives just to get the person to sleep at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that you could well argue that any test in the home is very very very very much more likely to yeild a more real and therefore accurate picture of what is going on!!!!!!!!!!!!

space45 wrote:what home tests?

There are quite a few.

Here is one company with explanation of it's types (captured during research for another thread):

http://www.clevemed.com/terms/type-1_ty ... _CMS.shtml

Just conjecture on my part in keeping with the original post: If the most dangerous part of apnea is O2 deprivation then we can measure that cheaply and easily in the home. If the results of a simple finger mounted recorder point to O2 deprivation, then there is a chance you can get their attention. Then education can begin. My premise depends on O2 being the key and, yes, I am consciously ignoring all the SleepyHead charts which we dote on.

Chilibit wrote:Just conjecture on my part in keeping with the original post: If the most dangerous part of apnea is O2 deprivation then we can measure that cheaply and easily in the home. If the results of a simple finger mounted recorder point to O2 deprivation, then there is a chance you can get their attention. Then education can begin. My premise depends on O2 being the key and, yes, I am consciously ignoring all the SleepyHead charts which we dote on.

I think that fractured sleep is the most dangerous part.

But lets say what you think is true for a minute. Now, is the O2 deprevation due to very low levels of O2 in the blood? Is it due to changes in blood chemistry from the "overshoot breathing" respose at the end of apneas and other events that often becomes long term facilitated (closes down circulation and makes oxygen transport difficult affecting the brain in particular). Is it due to both?

What I can tell you is that I have often wished I could track end tidal CO2.

FWIW I bought a pulse oximeter for exactly the purpose you mention. Got six men to wear it overnight. Found deep and many desatureations in each case. Left them with the information and report - - and - - a year later NONE of them had gotten to the doctor!!!

I gotta hand it to you space45. You inspire me!! I now have and idea for a very comfortable CPAP nose device. I just gotta try it!!

Carry on young man!!

My understanding, I have only 21 posts for Pete's sake, is that brain damage occurs. The possibility for stroke increases as well as mental impairment and a direct impact on the health of the heart. I interpret these as end states, mostly non-reversible, rather than symptoms such as my snoring. Obviously this knot is of Solomon quality. I was searching for a 'non threatening' test and the finger clipper qualifies. I was thinking in terms of one spouse using the data to pry a fence-sitter off of the fence. My neurologist, quite well respected I believe, can curl your hair will O2 deprivation stories. OK, my hair, which if you saw a photo would quite the trick. I did as you did and purchased a CMS device. It has not recorded de-saturations---but then I was chugging down O2 using the CPAP pump. I bought after I started therapy not before. I sense denial on an order that would make AA tear up. Especially amongst the invincible.

Todzo, thanks for the link, looked at their units and they are impressive.

the IRS, very bad name BTW, why on earth would anyone call themselves that by chose is well beyond me, anyway IRS witch is in the biz of selling sleep and respiratory stuff only used a old very antiquated o2 recorder to diagnose my sleep apnea with claims they paid a doc, they let slip one time they pay $50 and I doubt very much they would have wanted me to know that, to read it. I too bought a o2 meter/recorder with breathing capture as well, much better unit then theirs, and mine was small and fit on the wrist with built in rechargeable lithium ion batteries and a back lit graphic LCD display, now theirs was o2 only using 6 AA battery with one digit LED display that eat batteries. it took a couple of time to get the batteries to last the night. oh, and if the batteries died, the data was gone. great and wonderful piece of tech that it was. they claimed it was a high tech top of the line $1000.00 unit and mine was just junk. maybe 40 years ago theirs was top of the line and cost that much. anyway, so I do wonder how the doc was able to come to his findings that I had sleep apnea.

one thing I do find frustrating is the prices and control over this breathing and testing thing, they charge big buck and the insurance companies pay, ouch. they have turned this into big biz, now I love biz, big and small, but I do not like biz that is a rip off, and this industry, well the whole medical industry is one royal rip off. pharma can make billions selling over price meds to the poor that can barely afford it, sure some rich and insurance companies are in there to, but the over all profit margins are insane, now I do not mind so much insane pricing on something I want and can do with out, but if I have to have for my well being or need it for my continued survival then insane price just seems down right immoral. not much different then some guy sticking a gun in your face and demanding what ever is in your wallet.

Ok, now that is just sad, 6 guys, all with some real nasty problems and they would not go to the docs and get proper treatment. I maybe barking up the wrong tree here with this testing thing. I was hoping if the clinic came to them they would take note and take proper action and get help. guess I may have to rethink this whole thing. man that sucks

Todzo wrote:

Chilibit wrote:Just conjecture on my part in keeping with the original post: If the most dangerous part of apnea is O2 deprivation then we can measure that cheaply and easily in the home. If the results of a simple finger mounted recorder point to O2 deprivation, then there is a chance you can get their attention. Then education can begin. My premise depends on O2 being the key and, yes, I am consciously ignoring all the SleepyHead charts which we dote on.

I think that fractured sleep is the most dangerous part.

But lets say what you think is true for a minute. Now, is the O2 deprevation due to very low levels of O2 in the blood? Is it due to changes in blood chemistry from the "overshoot breathing" respose at the end of apneas and other events that often becomes long term facilitated (closes down circulation and makes oxygen transport difficult affecting the brain in particular). Is it due to both?

What I can tell you is that I have often wished I could track end tidal CO2.

FWIW I bought a pulse oximeter for exactly the purpose you mention. Got six men to wear it overnight. Found deep and many desatureations in each case. Left them with the information and report - - and - - a year later NONE of them had gotten to the doctor!!!

Chilibit wrote:My understanding, I have only 21 posts for Pete's sake, is that brain damage occurs. The possibility for stroke increases as well as mental impairment and a direct impact on the health of the heart. I interpret these as end states, mostly non-reversible, rather than symptoms such as my snoring. Obviously this knot is of Solomon quality. I was searching for a 'non threatening' test and the finger clipper qualifies. I was thinking in terms of one spouse using the data to pry a fence-sitter off of the fence. My neurologist, quite well respected I believe, can curl your hair will O2 deprivation stories. OK, my hair, which if you saw a photo would quite the trick. I did as you did and purchased a CMS device. It has not recorded de-saturations---but then I was chugging down O2 using the CPAP pump. I bought after I started therapy not before. I sense denial on an order that would make AA tear up. Especially amongst the invincible.

I did get one of the men to tell me why he did not see the doctor. For him, well he had just gone through the gauntlet of getting Social Security Disability and thought that if he got treatment he would be expected to perform. But you see I had influenced others to go to the doctor and he knew them. One had great success. I had moderate success. The rest, well, not much improvement if any and a lot of frustration.

I think the best thing we can do to improve peoples attitudes toward getting help for OSA is to improve the outcome of treatment, which currently is pitiable. Somewhere in the range of 50/50 for usable at all after more than a year and less than that finding relief, well, who would want to go there. Simply they do not.

space45 wrote:Todzo, thanks for the link, looked at their units and they are impressive.

...one thing I do find frustrating is the prices and control over this breathing and testing thing, they charge big buck and the insurance companies pay, ouch. they have turned this into big biz, now I love biz, big and small, but I do not like biz that is a rip off, and this industry, well the whole medical industry is one royal rip off. pharma can make billions selling over price meds to the poor that can barely afford it, sure some rich and insurance companies are in there to, but the over all profit margins are insane, now I do not mind so much insane pricing on something I want and can do with out, but if I have to have for my well being or need it for my continued survival then insane price just seems down right immoral. not much different then some guy sticking a gun in your face and demanding what ever is in your wallet.

And besides all that it does not heal you!!!

Lets just say I was more than disappointed when I started looking into the actual clinical trials on the drugs I was taking. And all the “estimated deaths from use” numbers.

Several have pointed out that the real “3rd leading cause of death” in the U.S.A. is medical care.

space45 wrote:Ok, now that is just sad, 6 guys, all with some real nasty problems and they would not go to the docs and get proper treatment.

Can we really call it “proper treatment”????

space45 wrote: I maybe barking up the wrong tree here with this testing thing. I was hoping if the clinic came to them they would take note and take proper action and get help. guess I may have to rethink this whole thing. man that sucks

+100000000000

Todzo: Your comments ring true. I see a combination of ignorance and fear---and the illusion that sand in your ostrich eyes is a good thing. Ignorance is easier to overcome than fear. I will give the O2 recording scheme a D- score---though it would have persuaded me a NY minute.

Ciao