11-01-2017, 11:12 AM
Battle of the headbands
Things started out smoothly enough but when bedtime arrived - things did not go as expected. Mind you, it had nothing to do with the new Airsense 10 that finally arrived yesterday and everything to do with me fighting well into the night with the (useless) chin strap I'd recently purchased to help me stop breathing through my mouth as I slept. As I fell asleep the elastic bands of the chin strap soon engaged in an all out war with my nose pillow headgear. I'd half manage to get the nose pillow headgear properly set only to have it pull the chin strap out of place. By three o'clock in the morning I finally threw in the towel. I removed the chin strap entirely and wore only the nasal pillows for the remainder of the night.
The result was that this morning's sleepyhead readings show 44% over redline leakage. Pretty obvious to me that very little of what got measured other than the extreme leakage can be trusted. What a waste.
So... this morning I'm back online looking for a chinstrap that might get the job done. Anything's likely to be better than the fifteen dollar waste of money, useless, chin jockstrap, that's currently laying in a pile next to me. I've also read about mouth taping in here (shudder!) but that option remains way way down at the bottom of my list somewhere after not using the CPAP ever again. Any recommendations for best chin strap options would be appreciated.
Which brings up other concern(s). I did recently see a sleep Dr. and had plans to go get sleep tested in his clinic soon after but have since reconsidered based on what I've learned about how to read my CPAP results both here and by checking my sleepyhead history. While the Dr was interviewing me and I him he happened to mention that there were several options for face masks - both full and partial. I then asked him if I was to get a partial face mask (nose pillows - nose cover) if breathing through my mouth would be an issue? He said: NO. Then he went on to tell me that the CPAP would maintain adequate pressure to do the job regardless of if my mouth was open or not I've since come to seriously doubt that. Particularly given the heavily skewed, redline leakage contaminated results following last nights strap wars.
My two questions regarding that meeting?
First, even though I have now reviewed several years of my own sleepyhead data and familiarized myself with how to interpret the results with the conclusion that I have mild apnea issues at worst - is it the opinion of the resident experts here that I should go ahead with the sleep test anyway? I don't really want to for a couple of reasons - first that it's an inconvenience and might not tell me anything critical that I don't already know and second that it will cost me some hundreds of dollars of co-pay that I would prefer to keep in my wallet. As a general rule I strive to avoid wasting both my time and my money.
Second, when I interview with new Dr's I like to feel them out with all kinds of questions. This particular Dr didn't strike me as being the sharpest knife in the drawer. For one thing, he didn't seem to be current on the wide ranging sleep research that's been going on. Second - in retrospect, his opinion about mouth breathing not being an issue insofar as impeding the CPAP doesn't seem well founded. I also got the feeling that he had become complacent in his job which is never a good thing to see in a Dr.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
The result was that this morning's sleepyhead readings show 44% over redline leakage. Pretty obvious to me that very little of what got measured other than the extreme leakage can be trusted. What a waste.
So... this morning I'm back online looking for a chinstrap that might get the job done. Anything's likely to be better than the fifteen dollar waste of money, useless, chin jockstrap, that's currently laying in a pile next to me. I've also read about mouth taping in here (shudder!) but that option remains way way down at the bottom of my list somewhere after not using the CPAP ever again. Any recommendations for best chin strap options would be appreciated.
Which brings up other concern(s). I did recently see a sleep Dr. and had plans to go get sleep tested in his clinic soon after but have since reconsidered based on what I've learned about how to read my CPAP results both here and by checking my sleepyhead history. While the Dr was interviewing me and I him he happened to mention that there were several options for face masks - both full and partial. I then asked him if I was to get a partial face mask (nose pillows - nose cover) if breathing through my mouth would be an issue? He said: NO. Then he went on to tell me that the CPAP would maintain adequate pressure to do the job regardless of if my mouth was open or not I've since come to seriously doubt that. Particularly given the heavily skewed, redline leakage contaminated results following last nights strap wars.
My two questions regarding that meeting?
First, even though I have now reviewed several years of my own sleepyhead data and familiarized myself with how to interpret the results with the conclusion that I have mild apnea issues at worst - is it the opinion of the resident experts here that I should go ahead with the sleep test anyway? I don't really want to for a couple of reasons - first that it's an inconvenience and might not tell me anything critical that I don't already know and second that it will cost me some hundreds of dollars of co-pay that I would prefer to keep in my wallet. As a general rule I strive to avoid wasting both my time and my money.
Second, when I interview with new Dr's I like to feel them out with all kinds of questions. This particular Dr didn't strike me as being the sharpest knife in the drawer. For one thing, he didn't seem to be current on the wide ranging sleep research that's been going on. Second - in retrospect, his opinion about mouth breathing not being an issue insofar as impeding the CPAP doesn't seem well founded. I also got the feeling that he had become complacent in his job which is never a good thing to see in a Dr.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
