Need GOOD User's Manual

The supplied "user's manual" for my Philips REMstar System One 560 series Auto Aflex is woefully inadequate. Everyone (doctor/supplier/Philips) always says, "I don't have (or am not allowed to provide) that information". I had to go online for info about changing my pressure settings, which I did with various forums' suggestions. My doctor was very surprised that I was able to do that & I could tell wanted to ask how, but that would have shown her lack of knowledge. She didn't ask & I didn't tell . . . but she decided, "we'll try those new settings & see how they work out". Still using after 16 months.

Does anyone know where I can get an "in depth" manual for this machine?

Well, seems like if you had a sleep study and paid good money for the study and the doc's advice you might want to keep them in the loop as far as making machine setting changes. The sleep doc who writes the prescription does this for a living and likely is better educated and exerpeiced than folks on a message forum. Just my 2 cents on this. I know how to change all the settings on my machine but I leave them where they were set by presecription. Turning off the ramp and most of the humidity is about it for me and those things are within the user's range of changes that are allowable I guess. The manual you are looking for is with the DME and you can probably find all the hacks you ever wanted on youtube.

"The sleep doc who writes the prescription does this for a living and likely is better educated and exerpeiced than folks on a message forum."

One would think so, but I struggled for almost a year with nothing but BS from doctor . . . basically, "strap this contraption on your face and everything will be all better". "I'm the expert; just do as I say". Didn't work that way. Night after night (almost a year) of little or no sleep and problems worse than before my initial visit. Drawing conclusions from another forum, to my specific questions, I changed to variable pressure, which immediately produced a completely new world for me. I used that setting for a couple of weeks, until my next doctor's appointment. As I said, she seemed completely flabbergasted . . . 1) that I had been able changed the settings (which she had previously stated flatly could only be changed remotely) . . . 2) that the new settings had produced results far superior to anything that she had tried. Believe me, she had tried several (all over the ballpark).

Don't get me wrong. I agree that we go to doctors because they are the "experts". However, when their expert advice is clearly not working, we shouldn't just blindly follow.

I have always been a proponant of self education in this regard as I never actually saw the doctor and to this day have not seen him or her. It is possible to learn how to change machine settings by looking through info on the internet. I also know that when I visited other forums, too much pseudo medical advice was given by folks trying to sound like gurus so I stopped hitting those forums. This type advice can be non-productive at best and at worst, perhaps dangerous. On one of these forums, I asked a question and was given advice by a "self appointed expert" that was flat wrong and dangerous.

Common sense dictates you speak with your doctor from a position of having self-educated and if the doctor had given me poor information, I wouid thank them and do the same as I did on that other CPAP forum... leave and find another. I know that insurance issues sometimes limit choices but if you are clever, you will figure this out and find another professional; there are medical reviews online and such.

I absolutely agree that there are junk cpap forums. On 1, I was told STFU because they didn't think my question was valid. Obviously, we have to make our own decisions about what advice from doctor or otherwise.