CPAP newbie

[sleep4]

Thanks to bonjour and others for the great and quick response.

I am little worried about the CSA myself, and I am not sure if CPAP is going to do it.
Any experience from members where CPAP made CSA better or worse.
was viewing a study from resmed that said the chances of CSA going up or down with CPAP is the same.,
So it could go either way.

[SarcasticDave94]

For myself, CPAP was better than a Bi-Level due to CA and how these differ in treatment and introduce pressure swings. However, the ASV was the only one to actually treat these CA and provide better restful sleep. I had on a lab sleep study counts of 124 CA to 24 OA. The doctor involved scripted a DreamStation BiPAP. Results were a huge disaster for me. Why? He didn't acknowledge CA as an issue and didn't plan accordingly. He would have rather blamed me for the BiPAP fail than address CA by getting off his fat tail and fight to get the ASV. And it's also an acceptable progression from CPAP to BPAP to ST to ASV if insurance dictates.

As was mentioned, some have gained reasonable treatment with an AutoSet or the VAuto by doing vastly differing settings on the specific machine. What I mean by this is there must be a plan to address CA that is specifically tailored to the machine you use. Sometimes CA like yours and the AutoSet is enough, sometimes a VAuto can serve well, but always the ASV will treat CA best because that is the only machine type currently designed specifically to treat CA. There is a variability on CA that has us label them as consistently inconsistent. Each day with CA can and likely will be different. This variability will need to be accounted for as well.

Any machine that is not an ASV will need a treatment plan to avoid CA. The ASV treatment plan is to treat CA directly. It will also very effectively treat OA as well.

I am of the camp that believes you can be treated successfully with an AutoSet if it proves to do well. I'm not so sure the VAuto will serve as well, as it varies pressures more which can increase CA instead of reduce them.

[sheepless]

cpap induces temporary ca in a fair number of new users. you, otoh, had ca in your sleep study so you have some tendency for it. cpap may make it worse. otoh, your numbers are relatively low and it may help. I had a ca-only diagnosis in 1987. in 2016, a sleep test produced 204 oa and 196 ca and like most everybody I was prescribed an apap that reduced my ahi from 72 to an average over time of about 5-6, meaning apap reduced both my oa and ca. no one including the sleep doc has an explanation for it but there it is. unfortunately I continued to feel awful after 18 months or so on apap so I moved on to asv and now vauto. asv is better for my mixed apnea but it didn't play well with my respiratory response to periodic limb movement which hopefully is not an issue for you. if you're going through the medical/insurance system, you aren't likely to have a choice as they almost always start with cpap/apap. no harm in trying and you might get lucky. if you're self funding, imo you'd be better off buying a new or used resmed asv. neither apap nor vauto is designed to treat ca. the vauto high/very high trigger setting can help reduce ca in some cases but I would say only marginally, and ca is inconsistent so it still comes and goes (I use the very high trigger). try the apap if it's what's available. if that doesn't do it, personally, I would skip the vauto and spend my money on the machine I know will treat mixed apnea.

[sleep4]

If I start with the Resmed 10 autostart, I can test my OSA and CSA  and my AHI levels just like the sleep test kit correct?
also, I have ready that I can get an O2 sensor hooked as well....

[SarcasticDave94]

If I understand you correctly, meaning you're referring to an AutoSet, then you can view sleep session results on OSCAR by use of the CPAP once you buy and use it. You can then adjust your AutoSet to try to optimize results in response to data and how it feels. Is that what you mean?

[sheepless]

yes. as Dave indicates, a data capable apap won't treat ca but it will flag them to see in oscar so you'll learn whether and how effective it is and have some data to take back to your doc if it's not as effective as you'd like. it may be required by your insurance but in any event it's not a bad idea to rent the machine first, just in case...

[staceyburke]

If you want an 02 monitor that can download to OSCAR the cms 50f is on Amazon for about 100 and ebay for about 80. It is a little tricky to set up, let us know before you try to set it up.

[Sleeprider]

We have seen individuals that had significant CA events at diagnosis get good therapy and succeed with the Airsense 10 Autoset. It seems against all odds, but it happens and about 15% of people with diagnostic results like yours, are fine with CPAP. Insurance insists that you fail CPAP and Bilevel before getting ASV, but we will do our best to make CPAP work for you. After that, we will help you source ASV if needed. Are you totally uninsured?

[Gideon]

You have the "A" team jumping in to help you.
As long as you are self-funding buy used, once you determine the correct machine (we will help you along the way), you can recover most of your cost via resale.
Because you are showing central apnea, this, getting a different machine to better your treatment, is a realistic possibility.

[sleep4]

yes, cash only... no insurance.