Apnea has gotten worse recently, I have no sleep study, can I just buy a cpcp?

[replayablecontent]

Hi sorry if this isn't the place for all this, I've been dealing with sleep apnea for a while. I had gotten a lot of it under control with weight loss and getting that all back on track. Recently my household was sick, and I noticed my o2 getting extremely low while sleeping (not sure how accurate my o2 sensor is, but I was dipping to 70-80 or so while sleeping). Ever since we were sick my apnea has gotten worse. My o2 hasn't been dipping quite as low, but I am waking up with headaches, occasionally I wake up gasping, etc.

I don't have the money for a sleep study currently, I see that the resmed airsense autoset 10 is recommended a lot. If I can afford that, should I just do it even though I don't have the study and all that done?

Thanks so much.

[G. Szabo]

Without a study, you might buy a sub-optimal instrument.

[G. Szabo]

Although Airsense auto set 10 indeed is the best in its class.

[replayablecontent]

Is an at home from Lofta good enough? I waited so long to do this, I was referred like 6 years ago and never went to do a study, it's my fault. But I really need to do something about this.

[chronic]

I think the way to go about it would be to get your friendly health care provider to write a script for the apap machine you mentioned in your post.  Find your best deal and buy it.  And use this web site to get it tuned up correctly.

[G. Szabo]

Is an at home from Lofta good enough? 

I cannot comment on that. A home study is a good start. 
You might also be able to borrow or rent an Autoset and some masks. Run it for a few days and post the results here. Unfortunately, the outcome depends on the mask fitting, so some help will be beneficial when setting up the instrument.

[OpalRose]

It may be cheaper to try one of the overnight home tests.  Check out this list and compare prices.  Lofta seems to be popular.

http://www.apneaboard.com/sleeptest.htm

With that said, you can purchase a ResMed A10 AutoSet Card-to-Cloud for less.  It has been priced on various vendor sites between $300+ to over $400.  
This would be without a Modem, so if you don't have to answer to insurance and prove compliance, this would be ideal.  

The only problem is that without a sleep study, there's no real way of knowing if you have Obstructive apnea and/or Central Sleep Apnea.  If Central Sleep Apnea, a simple Auto Cpap won't treat it.  You may need an ASV. (More expensive).

This is just a chance you would take with buying the AutoSet first.

[replayablecontent]

Would an ASV cover both types? What would be a good machine?

[G. Szabo]

The expensive Resmed AirCurve 10 can treat central (in the ASV mode ) and obstructive (in the ACPAP mode) apneas. But my understanding is that you need to choose between modes. So you must know which is the predominant problem with your breathing in the first place. The AirSense 10 can help you decide that.

[SarcasticDave94]

Without knowing that you have Central Apnea, the ASV would be an extra expensive device. Its real mission is treating Centrals. Getting either the ResMed AirSense 10 AutoSet or AirCurve 10 VAuto would be a better bet for most Apnea patients.

If you can get a script, then you could buy either machine. You could also do the home test. Either way, eventually you'll need a script to buy masks.