sleeptech

Did your old machine look like this legacy series or like this PR series? Newer models have a function called Bi-Flex, which may be causing what you describe. If you take it back where you got it, they should be able to check if it is on and turn it off for you without any trouble. It is not dangerous in any way to turn it off, and may indeed improve your treatment.

You say that you hate "the mask" but there is a huge variety of masks available now. What have you tried? Finding just the right one for you can make the world of difference. It sounds like your symptoms are pretty severe, so it may be well worth your while investigating what can be done to make CPAP more usable for you. You can pick up a new CPAP machine from http://www.secondwindcpap.com/ for as little as $250 USD, less if you're OK with second hand.

Hi I just wanted to make sure that you are aware than strokes are one of the main results of untreated OSA. It may not have been the reason that you had your previous stroke, but it certainly increases the chances of you having another, more severe, one. Also, even mild sleep apnoea can greatly affect your memory. So, in general terms, it would be very wise for someone in your position to persist with CPAP as much as possible, especially given that you are relatively young. CPAP could have a massive and beneficial impact on your quality of life over the next 50 years. Also, it is not unusual for people with mild (or even very mild) OSA to be very symptomatic, but it may well be that case that there are other things causing this in your case as well as OSA. Best of luck.

HeatherWeather, research has well established that a small proportion of people with severe OSA are subjectively asymptomatic, so it's not unusual that you should have a very bad result on your sleep study but not feel tired. It is also no surprise that you do feel tired after having commenced treatment. An AHI as high as yours will (128.1 events/hour) will have been causing massive sleep fragmentation. You are supposed to pass through the different stages of sleep in a particular pattern, but because your sleep is disrupted every 30 seconds when you start breathing again, your sleep pattern will have been broken into tin pieces and you wont have been getting the extended periods of deeper sleep and REM sleep that your brain needs and craves. When you start using CPAP, that impediment to your sleep is suddenly removed and what often happens is that your brain tries to make up for lost time by having way more of the sleep stages it has missed out on than it should normally have in a typical night. This is know as rebounding. This can leave you feeling very tired and groggy for the first few days or weeks and is one of the reasons why we always tell people that improvement is usually a gradual process rather than instantaneous. Let us know how you are getting along in a month or so.

Without knowing the exact make and model of your mask, I'm assuming that your mask has 2 prongs which seal against your nostrils. If you want a similar style, you could look at the Respironics Dreamwear mask. Rather than explaining it, I will suggest that you simply google some pics to get an idea of how it works. There is a version that sit under your nose but without the prongs. It may help.

Good advice. Sleeping in a chair can be very helpful. Also remember that, in general terms, the damage that OSA does is cumulative over the long term (gradually building up over years) and that a few weeks, or even months, waiting shouldn't put your husband at any greater risk.

I record and interpret sleep studies for a living (in addition to other stuff). Short version, the AHI of 1.5 is considered well within the bounds of normal sleep and not indicative of OSA. I'm not completely familiar with some of the abbreviations you have listed, but if "valid time" is the total amount of actual score-able sleep, 51 minutes is too little to be confident in those results. You could have significant OSA that won't show up in 51 minutes of sleep. That's about all I can say from what you have listed.

How quickly, and to what extent, people feel results varies greatly from one patient to the next. Some people feel better the first night (or half night) they use CPAP. Other people still don't feel hat different 6 - 12 months down the track. For the latter category it is often the case that they miss using CPAP for one night and are surprised at how much worse things are without it, despite feeling that their sleep had not improved. It is always important to remember that subjective improvement in tiredness, while greatly desirable, is only part of the picture. Assuming that the appropriate processes were followed, you can trust in the fact that someone verified that CPAP does improve your respiration and oxygenation, and therefore it is doing its job to aid your body physically. Don't be too concerned if it takes a while for you to feel the benefits, that's quite normal.

I have not had my hands on that specific model yet, but I can tell you that, historically, ResMed do put alarms in their machines for exactly that situation. If your specific model doesn't have the capability I can assure you that some do. ResMed even has a range with extra alarms (the VPAP ST-A), but a mask fit alarm or high leak alarm is fairly standard. Ask someone (preferably an experienced technician) to look at your settings and see if there is some sort of leak alarm that can be turned on.

We always advise our patients to check with the airline about their policy regarding CPAP/BiPAP machines before booking a ticket. We also advise that they carry a letter from a doctor saying that it is a prescribed medical device. As a rule of thumb, never assume that anyone ever knows anything about your CPAP or BiPAP machine. Even in a hospital. In my experience, very few hospital staff of any type (doctors, nurses or other), know anything about CPAP, so I wouldn't expect any non-medical people to be familiar with them. Always take charge of your own equipment and use it yourself. When in hospital I recommend politely asking the nursing staff not to touch your equipment and to let you do it yourself. They have a terrible habit of pulling stuff to pieces and losing things. I am sorry to hear of your air travel travail HarryMarshall, and I hope it may prompt the airline to develop a policy around devices for OSA. Awareness is increasing, but knowledge is still very patchy.