Taking Your CPAP to the Hospital

Yesterday I had a procedure that required general anesthesia and the anesthesiologist recommended I bring my machine.
So I brought everything including a bottle of distilled water.
Because they had never seen an oral CPAP mask before, they asked me to give them an in-service training session for the head nurse for the recovery room which I was glad to provide. The plan was as soon as the airway tube was withdrawn, they would hook me up. Later in recovery, they told me that they had held an in-service training session for all of the recovery nurses ( using me as training example ) and all went well.

I downloaded the data from my machine and I could see the time when I was hooked up in the operating room, then no data for a few seconds while I was being transported into recovery, and finally data while in recovery. I was on the pump for a total of about one hour. For my machine, Auto-On is set so they didn't need to worry about turning it on and off with me hooked up.

So, if you are going to have either an in-patient or out-patient procedure or being admitted for hospital care, ask ahead of time about the use of your machine. It may give you the opportunity of providing training and experience to the nursing staff and help you breathe during the time in the recovery room.

BTW, on the way out to the car, the aid and I chatted and she was also a CPAP user. Turns out she only uses her machine a couple of days a week. We had a nice chat about that including the risks of doing it that way. Always take advantage of any opportunity to help CPAP users do better in their usage.

Very timely post JDS74 as yesterday, I read about some cases in which sadly, patients died or were severely injured due to post apnea complications from surgery not being handled correctly. Glad everything went well for you.

Anyway, this is perfect reminder that when you have having surgery, to make sure all bases are covered and not assume anything even if you are told as I was by the head anesthesiologist when I was considering having nasal surgery, that i needed to trust him because they knew what they were doing.

49er

JDS74 wrote:Yesterday I had a procedure that required general anesthesia and the anesthesiologist recommended I bring my machine.
So I brought everything including a bottle of distilled water.
Because they had never seen an oral CPAP mask before, they asked me to give them an in-service training session for the head nurse for the recovery room which I was glad to provide. The plan was as soon as the airway tube was withdrawn, they would hook me up. Later in recovery, they told me that they had held an in-service training session for all of the recovery nurses ( using me as training example ) and all went well.

I downloaded the data from my machine and I could see the time when I was hooked up in the operating room, then no data for a few seconds while I was being transported into recovery, and finally data while in recovery. I was on the pump for a total of about one hour. For my machine, Auto-On is set so they didn't need to worry about turning it on and off with me hooked up.

So, if you are going to have either an in-patient or out-patient procedure or being admitted for hospital care, ask ahead of time about the use of your machine. It may give you the opportunity of providing training and experience to the nursing staff and help you breathe during the time in the recovery room.

BTW, on the way out to the car, the aid and I chatted and she was also a CPAP user. Turns out she only uses her machine a couple of days a week. We had a nice chat about that including the risks of doing it that way. Always take advantage of any opportunity to help CPAP users do better in their usage.

BTW, this was the second time I was scheduled for this procedure.
First time, the anesthesiologist popped in for a quick chat after I was gowned up and had the IV running. Because it was late afternoon, after a discussion of my particulars regarding apnea, he canceled the procedure and got me rescheduled for an early morning time when he could be there for the whole recovery period.

We talked in great detail about the anesthesia cocktail he was going to use and canceled out some meds routinely used because I had adverse reactions to them. Although it is uncommon, it turned out to be very helpful when I asked what, exactly, he was going to use. That got him thinking about my particular problem.

Turns out, I was "an interesting medical patient." Anesthesia for a central apnea patient is complicated when the doctor and the anesthesiologist are sharing the airway during the procedure. But, all went well.

Glad to hear it went well.

By the way, your experience is why when I have surgery in the future, I will be insisting on meeting with the anesthesiologist head of time and get the list of meds that will be used. I don't want these last minute surprises even though I may not be able to avoid them entirely.

Speaking of surgery times, I read that it is best for people with apnea to have their procedure in the morning, particularly if it is going to be at an outpatient surgery center, so there is time to address post operative issues. If I had had the surgery at the outpatient center, it would have been in the afternoon. So I find it interesting your procedure was rescheduled for the morning.

Your experience with your anesthesiologist made me realize why I didn't have a good feeling talking with the head guy. I just felt like I wasn't being heard about the concerns I had.

49er

PS - When I asked a nurse who was taking me up to meet with the anesthesiologist how many people did what I was doing. She hardly anyone did and wished more people did set up these pre surgical meetings.

JDS74 wrote:BTW, this was the second time I was scheduled for this procedure.
First time, the anesthesiologist popped in for a quick chat after I was gowned up and had the IV running. Because it was late afternoon, after a discussion of my particulars regarding apnea, he canceled the procedure and got me rescheduled for an early morning time when he could be there for the whole recovery period.

We talked in great detail about the anesthesia cocktail he was going to use and canceled out some meds routinely used because I had adverse reactions to them. Although it is uncommon, it turned out to be very helpful when I asked what, exactly, he was going to use. That got him thinking about my particular problem.

Turns out, I was "an interesting medical patient." Anesthesia for a central apnea patient is complicated when the doctor and the anesthesiologist are sharing the airway during the procedure. But, all went well.

The time for me was the first on the schedule for that day just because of the possibility of apnea complications.
Fortunately, I didn't have any but the staff and the anesthesiologist were prepared. The morning time gave them the time if it was needed.

Scheduling a procedure that has general anesthesia is best done early morning rather than afternoon.
The morning schedule provides additional recovery room time just in case. All the staff will be there including the anesthesiologist. The recovery room staff will all be on the same shift so shift change issues won't be a problem.

The afternoon schedule provides the opportunity for being delayed even later with much less time for the primary staff to be there. There could easily be a shift change in the middle of everything and the people you trained on your equipment will leave and new folks will take over.