Sierra

First, I am not a medical professional, just someone with apnea and have spent a bit of time trying to figure it out. From what you describe it sounds like you may have some heart issues and certainly having your blood oxygen going down to 80 is not normal. It indicates you are not breathing. These together could be indicators of central apnea. I have to disagree with the doctors that are saying you don't wake up with apnea. You may not fully wake up, but you can be aroused. There are events called RERAs that are Respiratory Event Related Arousals. Central apnea is when you simply stop breathing. There can be many causes, but one is low or erratic blood circulation. Your body depends on the CO2 level in your blood to determine if you are breathing deeply and often enough. If blood flow is slow it can make the control system unstable.

But, these are just thoughts on my part. What you really need is to get a sleep test to determine if you are having apnea events. This can be an overnight test in a sleep lab, or it can also be done with a take home sleep test kit. You bring the machine back in the morning and they review the data collected. Where I am, clinics often offer these home tests for free. You might want to do some searching as to which clinics may do this, and get a referral to the clinic.

I am not aware of any way of the doctor being able to remotely view OSCAR data. You potentially could send the files and then they could be viewed. That is a bit cumbersome though. The official program from ResMed that doctors can download is called ResScan. If your doctor has ResScan you can bring your SD card in and then they can look at the data. I believe it is similar to OSCAR, but is only available to medical professionals.

To be frank, I would be quite skeptical of anyone using MyAir level data to make decisions about treatment and CPAP setup. There is a lot more to it than what is in MyAir.

Every machine is delivered to the supplier with a SD card already in it. If you don't have a card then the supplier must have removed it. The normal card is a 4 GB, but any full sized SD up to 32 GB should work. The only way your doctor can see the detailed data is if you bring the SD card in so they can download the data and view it. The detailed data cannot be viewed wirelessly to my knowledge. The summary data sent via MyAir is of limited used.

To view the data you need a PC or Mac and need to download the OSCAR program and install it. You will need a SD card reader. If your computer does not have one built in, the easiest way is to buy a small portable SD reader (about $10) that plugs into your USB on the computer. Your can remove the card and download the data daily, or do it periodically. I believe the 4 GB card will hold up to one year of data before it starts to overwrite it.

Here is an example of the daily report screen from OSCAR. Other historical data is available under the Statistics and Overview tabs. It tracks all the setup changes made to your machine since it was new (providing there was a SD card in it).

It certainly sounds like a defect with your particular machine. The chip that provides this over the wireless service is one of the ones that is in short supply due to problems in the factory that make them. Perhaps they are using lower quality chips or ones that have not been fully tested. ResMed has actually released an AirSense 10 machine that does not have this wireless chip, and sell it at a lower price. They are trying to meet demand for the machines despite the chip shortage.

It would seem you will have to work with the supplier to get a new machine. Or, the other alternative is simply not use the wireless service. I have an AirSense 10 that appears to be sending data somewhere but I have never signed up to MyAir. It appears to me to be a very limited application and is mainly intended to monitor compliance with using the machine. Some who get their machine provided by the healthcare have an obligation to use the machine for 4 or more hours a day, or they lose the machine.

The other option is to download OSCAR which is a freeware program that does detailed tracking of all your data. Due to the wireless data limits very little summary data is actually sent to the MyAir app. OSCAR on the other hand can track second to second data for the whole night. All this data is stored on your SD card, and is available to view with OSCAR. In my opinion OSCAR is far more useful than MyAir.

We just got back from a 4 day camping trip where the new Amazon DC to DC converter was used each night by my wife. It worked perfectly with both the heated hose and humidifier turned on. The original S9 DC to DC converters from ResMed would only last 15 minutes or so before they tripped out on overload. The Amazon converter is half the price and actually works!

All I have used are ResMed APAP machines, so not much help to you on a Phillips or Dreamstation. I also have not installed OSCAR, and just keep using my SleepyHead program. Other than a couple of minor bugs in how it displays machine setup detail, it seems to work fine for me. I am from the school of "if it isn't broke, don't fix it!".

As I say, I have not used OSCAR, but my recollection from SleepyHead is that when you download it you get two versions; OpenGL, and Broken-GL, or something like that. The idea is if one does not run, then you try the other. Not sure if OSCAR does the same or not. But, you could check and try both versions to see if that cures your problem. Another thought is that you could try SleepyHead to see if that works on your older machines. I could probably manage to get you a copy. I don't think it is available on line any longer.

I suffer from mixed apnea and initially thought I needed either a BiPAP or ASV to deal with it. However, over time I have managed to get my AirSense 10 AutoSet to deal reasonably well with it. My long term AHI is now 0.87, compared to initially where it was in the 5-7 range. The secret seems to have been to switch to fixed pressure CPAP Mode and optimize the pressure to minimize both OA and CA events. I currently run 11 cm fixed. Also of significant help was turning EPR back to full time and setting it at 2.0 cm. May not work for everyone, but has so far for me. I think my machine was mistaking either CA events or hypopnea events for OA events and then raising the pressure to deal with them when in Auto mode. The increased pressure in turn caused more CA events and AHI went up.

The best way to check to see if it is any kind of apnea event is to use OSCAR to view the time period where the suspected events have occurred. It should be possible to tell if it was apnea and what type.

From the OSCAR data you have posted about all I can see is that your CA events seem to be on the high side. It would be much better if you just posted one Daily report screen that is not zoomed in on a specific period of time. For example if you could do a Daily screen from July 27 that would be helpful. Make sure it shows the pressure graph as well as the Event Flag bar. I would like to see when and at what pressure you are having the CA events.

A thorough cleaning is about all I can suggest. When we travel we just bring our home AirSense 10 AutoSet machines with us. They pack up easily and don't take up that much room. With air travel you can bring them on board without charge as they are medical equipment.

RO water depending on the type of RO is not quite as pure as distilled water. The purest water would be deionized water. Ultra purity is not really a concern as long as the water is clean and bacteria free.