New User to CPaP.

Hi guys,
I am 29 years old, and was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea last october. I am not overweight, at all or have a "large Neck" or anything. The reason I asked my dr for the study, was cause I was having vague day time symptoms such as sleepiness, tired while driving, unable to focus in conferencesand really bad GERD, and intolerance to intesne exercise, and Libido as well as erection issues.

Unwillingly he said ok fine lets just do a home sleep study, and I ended up having an AHI of 7.9 on the home sleep study. But the study was horrible. I was not asleep most of the time and I am sure it was completely inaccurate.
After this he just put me on auto cpap and said he will download the data. I was not pleased with this.

I am also an Internal medicine doctor myself. and I thought 7.9 is not that bad. Let me see if I can get by without it. Well my symtoms are a bit worse, so I decided to give it a second go. I have a full face as well as a nasal pillow and an auto titratable machine from 6-16.

Anyways just wanted to introduce my self, cause I will be asking tons of question. I also have an appoinment with another doctor today, hoping to get a "real study." and proper titration so I know whats going on.

Welcome to the forum.
Which machine did you get? It's not hard to evaluate yourself what is going on because auto adjusting machines collect data and software can be used to evaluate that data. It isn't rocket science.
It is also possible that you have other issues that the apap machine can't report on like PLMD which could be impacting sleep quality and anything that impacts sleep quality will sure mess with how we feel during the day..
You can start with evaluating the data that your machine gathers though. Might spot something that stands out that has room for improvement.

When you have time please add your equipment to your profile..see mine as an example. This would help us help you better and faster.
Once we know which machine you are using we can then point you to software if you want to learn how to use it.

Yes that would be great. I will do that today as soon as i get some down time.
Thanks

I might also add that AHI is only a count of the number of events per hour you had.
It is no indication of the length of those apneas or the degree of hypoxia you may have experienced.
My AHI was only 13, but I was suffering from painful sleep deprivation.

Machine ResMed S9 Resmed H5i
Mask Mirage Quattro Full Face Mask
AutoCpap 6-16

AHI 7.7 per hour
spent 7.2 minutes under 90% O2and 5.2 minutes under 85%.

blackrock wrote:Machine ResMed S9 Resmed H5i
Mask Mirage Quattro Full Face Mask
AutoCpap 6-16

AHI 7.7 per hour
spent 7.2 minutes under 90% O2and 5.2 minutes under 85%.

Hi blackrock,
Your machine -- S9 Autoset or S9 Escape Auto? (Name is right by the Start/Stop button.)

You can use either SleepyHead or ResScan software or both. See the links in my signature line for software information.
SleepyHead is the easiest and fastest software to use. A few minor bugs but overall the important stuff will match up with ResScan.

Which Auto do you have? AutoSet or Escape Auto? The AutoSet collects quite a bit of data on that SD card but the default from the factory is for summary usage only. So you have to go into the clinical setup menu and make a little change so that the machine will collect and record all the data that is available.
So go into the clinical menu and make sure that Sleep Quality is set to "ON" and not "Usage".
Here's the provider manual explaining how to get there
http://www.apneuvereniging.nl/forum/pdf ... manual.pdf
and a good little video showing its features
http://www.cpaplibrary.com/machines.html

If you have the Escape Auto...take it back..extremely limited data and it doesn't use the new algorithm (better technology).
The model name "Escape Auto" or "AutoSet" is clearly shown up by the on/off button.

How to add your equipment permanently to your profile (so you don't have to type it in each time) explained here
wiki/index.php/Registering_Equipment_in_User_Profile

Once you get the detailed daily report you can post it here so that we can see what you are seeing and offer any ideas based on what we might see.
How to post images of reports is discussed in this thread along with some examples.
Screen shot thread viewtopic.php?f=1&t=81072&p=737779#p737779

That 6 to 16 range will work well if you don't need any more than 10 cm of pressure during the night.
Won't work so well if you need more than 10.
Your AHI isn't/wasn't horribly high on the home study but there's no telling how decent the home study was in the data it gathered. There are varying levels of thoroughness involved with the home studies. Some are almost as good as an in lab study with what they gather and some are nothing more than wearing an overnight pulse oximeter on their finger and measuring oxygen level drops and counting the drop as an event. Not everyone who has OSA will experience a significant drop in O2 levels. I have a friend who had an in lab sleep study and her AHI was in the 60s but her Oxygen levels never dropped below 94% from a baseline of 97%.

Let's see what your machine might be wanting to do and go from there. When plain jane OSA is the only thing going on people can often get by with what is showing on these new model of machines and using it to optimize their therapy.
Doesn't hurt to try and the option for an in lab sleep study can always be on the back burner.

How can I tell?
Here are the pictures of the tag on machine

http://tinypic.com/r/2jfnbxk/8

blackrock wrote:How can I tell?
Here are the pictures of the tag on machine

http://tinypic.com/r/2jfnbxk/8

Name is written right above the Start/Stop button on top of the machine

That's the bottom of the blower unit. REF 36005A points to the AutoSet if I remember right.
You should see AutoSet on the top of the machine just above the LCD screen.

YOu guys are geniuses.

It is Autoset.

This is a lot of information, and it seems like brain surgery right now. But will process it tonight or tomorrow when I have alittle bit more time.

It's not rocket science but just like your Internal Medicine stuff...you didn't understand/learn it all over night and such it is with all this cpap stuff.

blackrock wrote:YOu guys are geniuses.
It is Autoset.
This is a lot of information, and it seems like brain surgery right now. But will process it tonight or tomorrow when I have alittle bit more time.

I thought getting a Ph.D. in my field was an accomplishment until I got diagnosed with sleep apnea and had to figure out cpap. But like Pugsy says, it's just a whole new deal and not easy to wrap your mind around when you're tired and sleep-deprived.

While you're waiting for your next sleep/titration study, there's a lot you can see about what's currently going on with your therapy. When you have time we can tell you about SleepyHead and other software that allows you to see all the data your machine provides and ultimately will help get your therapy dialed in optimally. BTW, we're happy you have the Autoset and don't have to deal with trying to switch out machines.

MAy 1 sleep only could keep the mask on for 3.5 hours and had 2 evens. Both seems like Central apnea as per the machine.

Help me understand this data from April 30th. I got MY CPAP machine and wanted to try it out. This time I used the nasal pillow mask and I barely laid down for about an hour. I dont even think I went to sleep, Was pretty awake. When I checked My AHI it said 22 or something ridiculous. All my apneas are labeled as clear airway apneas. Was it the nasal pillow mask causing issue?