Sierra

My wife still uses her S9 AutoSet and it works very well for her. If you use the S9 in Auto and SleepyHead to monitor the results you can check to see if the Elite is setup at the right pressure. About the only advantage I can think of for the AirSense 10 over the S9 is that the AirSense 10 has an Auto Ramp feature that I like.

If you are getting the pressure and the mask hose is not blocked or kinked you should be getting the required pressure. What is your minimum set at?

Some events can be caused by a less than restful sleep. However whether it is 40 or 25, both are still too high. Does you machine support SleepyHead? If so looking at the data with it, may be informative as to what the problem could be.

The AirSense 10 Elite costs about $50 more than the AirSense 10 CPAP. Can you offer to pay the $50 difference? They are both CPAP machines, and should be covered by your doctor's prescription for a CPAP.

I believe there is a commercial product that has the slit cut in it. Probably a lot more expensive than doing it yourself. I just fold over an edge of the tape to make it easy to remove. But I do find if I remove it in the night it does not stick well enough again without using new tape...

I am not as familiar with the DreamStation machines, but with the ResMed if you have a heated hose and put the humidity in Auto, it seems to adjust quite well for all humidity and temperature conditions. I never change it.

About the only thing I do different is use a water and Dawn dish cleaning soap wash after the vinegar and before the final rinse with water.

One thing you might want to consider doing is getting some HEPA or Hypoallergenic filters for your DreamStation. They are finer than the standard filters and may help to remove pollen.

I assume you have a heated hose and are using the humidifier in automatic mode?

It isn't a sure thing that one will get better numbers with an APAP. They tend to get issued with a fairly wide range between minimum and maximum pressure, with the minimum pressure typically too low. That means each night you have to have some apnea events first to get the pressure up to where it needs to be. And if you are prone to central apneas a higher pressure can make things worse. For those reasons those with an APAP tend to gravitate to a narrow range between the minimum and maximum pressure, if the objective is the best possible results. But, having it in auto mode and then using SleepyHead you can determine what that pressure range is, and when it gets narrow, just switch to a fixed pressure and potentially get even better results. This is the refinement process that essentially eliminates the need for an overnight titration study to determine a pressure.

Yes, I believe the AirSense Elite records detailed data that can be read into SleepyHead. The AirSense CPAP model is more basic and does not.

I think the DME system is misguided in the way they dispense machines. Their first choice is a CPAP, and if that fails then a APAP. It would be more cost effective to just go with an APAP from day one and skip the titration tests.

I think using a good APAP like the ResMed AirSense 10 AutoSet is the best way to go. It is actually less than $100 more expensive than the CPAP Elite. If you can find a good deal on line you may be able to get it for virtually the same price. I also like to use SleepyHead and monitor my own results. That said, in some situations a fixed CPAP pressure can give good or better results than an auto machine. I have now changed my AirSense AutoSet into fixed CPAP pressure mode. But, it would have been difficult to get there without the auto mode and SleepyHead.

The problem with a fixed CPAP machine is that if you cannot put it in auto mode it is difficult and very time consuming to find the right pressure. Sleep labs love to do titration tests to determine the "right pressure", because they make good money doing that. An auto machine does a titration test every night for free, providing you look at the results with SleepyHead.