CPAP Newbie

[Sleeprider]

The Resmed Airsense 10 Autoset has helped other members that suffered from aerophagia because the auto-adjusting CPAP does not have to maintain a high pressure all the time to be effective. It responds with higher pressure when needed as your sleep position and sleep stage change. Using data from the autoset empowers patients to make choices between controlling obstructive events and mitigating aerophagia to find the best balance in therapy. Finally, how can you or your doctor make any decisions without knowing something about the efficacy of this CPAP? Like us, you are flying blind and having to make adjustments based on "feel".

Speaking of feel and comfort, your CPAP does have a very useful feature called EPR (exhale pressure relief) that provides from 1 to 3 cm-H2O pressure relief from inhale to exhale. This feature can help relieve aerophagia and it has therapy applications to reduce flow limitations and makes breathing much easier and more comfortable. You may want to verify your EPR setting and try alternate settings between 1 and 3.

One last thought. Your supplier provided a chinstrap. Most of these are extremely poorly designed and cause more problems when they pull the chin back instead of up. We prefer to use either a soft cervical collar which can maintain airway alignment and provide gentle upward pressure on the jaw, or the Knightsbridge dual chinstrap by Supplier #37 which maintains jaw support in the correct direction. If your chinstrap pull your jaw back consider trading up. I truly wish you luck getting a CPAP machine upgrade. It will make a huge difference in your therapy and empower you to make good, informed decisions.

[Gideon]

You want a copy of your prescription and your sleep test, a full copy, not just the summary, for your personal records. Start a file folder where you put everything apnea in it. The script will allow you to purchase mask (or CPAP) for whomever, and provide a basis for your new doctor when you eventually move.

The machine you received is, at least for you, proof of a profit motive, vs a treatment motive from your supplier. You need to know that. Realize that you are paying for this, and for the same price you could have had a (cars) Yugo or a Vette. Which would be your choice?

[Sleepy Lou]

The Resmed Airsense 10 Autoset has helped other members that suffered from aerophagia because the auto-adjusting CPAP does not have to maintain a high pressure all the time to be effective. It responds with higher pressure when needed as your sleep position and sleep stage change.  Using data from the autoset empowers patients to make choices between controlling obstructive events and mitigating aerophagia to find the best balance in therapy.  Finally, how can you or your doctor make any decisions without knowing something about the efficacy of this CPAP?  Like us, you are flying blind and having to make adjustments based on "feel".

Speaking of feel and comfort, your CPAP does have a very useful feature called EPR (exhale pressure relief) that provides from 1 to 3 cm-H2O pressure relief from inhale to exhale.  This feature can help relieve aerophagia and it has therapy applications to reduce flow limitations and makes breathing much easier and more comfortable.  You may want to verify your EPR setting and try alternate settings between 1 and 3.

One last thought. Your supplier provided a chinstrap.  Most of these are extremely poorly designed and cause more problems when they pull the chin back instead of up.  We prefer to use either a soft cervical collar which can maintain airway alignment and provide gentle upward pressure on the jaw, or the Knightsbridge dual chinstrap by   Supplier #37 which maintains jaw support in the correct direction.  If your chinstrap pull your jaw back consider trading up.  I truly wish you luck getting a CPAP machine upgrade. It will make a huge difference in your therapy and empower you to make good, informed decisions.

Sleeprider, thank you for the information. Fortunately I'm not the wait and see type of guy and I started my research right away, and came across this helpful site. 

As far as the EPR setting goes, I have mine set on 3. 

SleepRider, I don't know your sleeping situation, but if "you" had to choose between a dual chin strap vs a soft cervical collar, what would your pick be? 


I will get to work on trying to get my CPAP machine upgraded, I sure hope I don't have to jump through hoops to accomplish that. 

[Sleepy Lou]

The machine you received is, at least for you, proof of a profit motive, vs a treatment motive from your supplier.  You need to know that.  Realize that you are paying for this, and for the same price you could have had a (cars) Yugo or a Vette.  Which would be your choice?

bonjour,   irks me that this seems to be my case. I will get to work on upgrading towards my Vette   Thank you for your help.

[OpalRose]

Sleepy Lou,
The Cpap you have is not data capable. If you wanted to use it with OSCAR, it wouldn't show any data.

Are you able to swap this machine out for the ELITE or preferably the AutoSet?

As far as Aerophagia, lower pressure often helps, but that could be a trade off meaning a slightly higher AHI.
A chin strap or cervical collar many help, and some even tape their mouths, but I'll let others address that.

[Sleeprider]

When you get your sleep study, there will likely be a table that shows the events on a time-scale. If your apnea have a tendency to be clustered in groups rather than occur randomly through the night, that would suggest the kind of positional apnea that would benefit from the use of a soft cervical collar. You can read the positional apnea wiki and see examples of what this looks like with OSCAR which is the software you can use with an upgrade to your CPAP http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...onal_Apnea We know the soft collar can effectively eliminate this kind of apnea and allow users to have much lower pressure. You can also read the soft cervical collar wiki in my signature links.

The benefit of the chinstrap is mainly to prevent mouth leaks when using a nasal mask or pillows. It can help maintain the jaw closed to prevent leaks. The chinstrap does not affect head or neck alignment, but if you have the old style elastic chinstrap the pulls your jaw back, it can create obstructive apnea. Read the information on Supplier #37 website and I think you'll get the idea.

[Sleepy Lou]

Sleepy Lou,
The Cpap you have is not data capable.  If you wanted to use it with OSCAR, it wouldn't show any data.

Are you able to swap this machine out for the ELITE or preferably the AutoSet?

As far as Aerophagia, lower pressure often helps, but that could be a trade off meaning a slightly higher AHI.
A chin strap or cervical collar many help, and some even tape their mouths, but I'll let others address that.

Hello OpalRose, thank you the information, bonjour and SleepRider have just shared some great information in regards your question. I'm going to take the necessary steps to upgrade my machine. 

Question for you, bonjour and SleepRider:  Since my machine is not data capable, how accurate is the information on the myAir app in relation to the data its providing me from my machine? The data the app is providing me is as follows: Leak data (L/min), Events per hour (AHI), and usage hours per night.

[Sleepy Lou]

When you get your sleep study, there will likely be a table that shows the events on a time-scale.  If your apnea have a tendency to be clustered in groups rather than occur randomly through the night, that would suggest the kind of positional apnea that would benefit from the use of a soft cervical collar.  You can read the positional apnea wiki and see examples of what this looks like with OSCAR which is the software you can use with an upgrade to your CPAP http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...onal_Apnea   We know the soft collar can effectively eliminate this kind of apnea and allow users to have much lower pressure.  You can also read the soft cervical collar wiki in my signature links.  

The benefit of the chinstrap is mainly to prevent mouth leaks when using a nasal mask or pillows.  It can help maintain the jaw closed to prevent leaks.  The chinstrap does not affect head or neck alignment, but if you have the old style elastic chinstrap the pulls your jaw back, it can create obstructive apnea. Read the information on   Supplier #37 website and I think you'll get the idea.

Thank you Sleeprider, reading over your suggested reading now.

[Sleeprider]

The MyAir app is accurate as far as it goes. I think since you read some wikis you can see there is a need to know the type, duration and timing of events to help understand the best course to take with therapy. The leak data is presented as an averaged metric, so if leaks are showing up at all, they can be significant. MyAir is mainly a tool designed to incentivize use of the machine and scores high if you use the machine, and have fewer mask on/off times. It does not subtract much for AHI events even when they are fairly significant. AHI, leaks and hours of use are all insurance metrics. It really does not help guide the user to optimize therapy. If you make changes to settings, the information can give a bettor or worse reference to the change, but not why or what.

[Sabina]

Your DME provider will provide you with a copy of your script if you ask them.