[CPAP] Adjusting Pressure on Respironics Model 362505

[RobertK]

Short Version:
I have a very old Respironics CPAP, Model 362505, and want to know how to adjust the pressure on it.

Long Version:
I have been benefitting from CPAP therapy since I was first diagnosed and prescribed a CPAP in February of 1991.

You read that right, 1991.

I'm posting this because the CPAP machine I was using for the last eight years or so (which I had purchased, used, from a patient who no longer needed it after some surgical treatment for his condition) finally gave up in the middle of the night, and of course, isn't worth fixing. I had a backup machine ready, and so was able to set it up and go back to sleep, but I'm posting this because I'd like to squeeze a few more years out of my very first CPAP machine, which I still own.

When I bought it, CPAP therapy was still only about seven years old, and so the machines weren't set up to be as easily adjustible, with on-board computers and LED displays for the R.T. and so on: it was a precision piece of medical equipment that had to be opened up and futzed with by the R.T. before it was delivered to the patient.

Anyway, mine is a Respironics Model #362505.

I need a higher pressure, now, than I did when this was set up for me, initially, and I wonder if anybody following this board happens to know WHERE the adjustment is. I'm pretty sure it's a screw somewhere on the mechanism, and that I have to unscrew the base of the machine and dismantle it to get at it, but this sort of thing was a Federal Secret back in the days, and so there's no hope of me finding a manual or technicians' guide on line.

The machine is still perfectly functional, but the pressure is simply too low, now, for me to use it (I tried after my "real" machine failed, and before I set up my other backup, which has a more accessible way to modify the pressure).

The general shape of the machine is like the one in the picture:    
i.e., a black cylinder with a little black tower next to it, but mine is an even older model than the one you see in the attached image.

Has anyone any guidance to offer me, as to how I may adjust the pressure so that I can get a little more life out of it? I'd engage an R.T. to do it for me, but you know how it is, these days: what insurance do you have, produce prescriptions and recent sleep studies and notes from your grandmother or we can't even talk to you.

As far as I know, this may well be my very first machine ever: I'm pretty sure that at some point, I wasn't sure it was working properly, brought it to the home health care people, and they replaced the motor--but it's still working just fine, after all these years, and I want to "use up" it's life before I throw it out.

Thank you for your attention and--if you can help me--your assistance.

[DeepBreathing]

G'day Robert, welcome to Apnea Board!

Does your machine have an identifier other than the model number? That might help you find it on our manual download page (link at the top of every page on the forum).

Let us know how you get on.

[trish6hundred]

Hi RobertK,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
I hope you can get your pressure set on your older machine. Just curious, does it have a name, such as, SleepEasy, along with the model number you gave?
Hang in there for more responses to your post and much success to you as you continue your CPAP therapy.

[Sleeprider]

Robert, (sigh) get on Craigslist and get a relatively new machine for next to nothing. There is a place for antiques, and while they are interesting, do you really want to rely on that for your CPAP therapy?

I respect "cheap", but you're taking it to a new level.

[OMyMyOHellYes]

Robert, (sigh) get on Craigslist and get a relatively new machine for next to nothing. There is a place for antiques, and while they are interesting, do you really want to rely on that for your CPAP therapy?

I respect "cheap", but you're taking it to a new level.

It's only a quarter century old!

[RobertK]

Does your machine have an identifier other than the model number? That might help you find it on our manual download page (link at the top of every page on the forum).

I believe that Respironics used to call this series "RemStar". There's no model name emblazoned on the unit.

I actually have two, that are almost identical; the only visible difference is that the later one has an on/off switch that does NOT glow with a green LED light all night, and also seems to have some sort of clear, dark plastic triangle at the top of the tower: I have no idea what it is for. You can just make out the triangle I mean in the photo I uploaded.

I did already browse through the list of on-line manuals before posting my inquiry, but I think all of them are for more recent machines that had an easier-to-use computerized interface for clinicians.

I'm sure there's a screw or knob inside the unit somewhere, but I'd rather not try to take it apart without some guidance or a schematic diagram, and I'm sure Respironics won't answer me if I get in touch (they used to, way back when, when I first started CPAP therapy: they were very nice, on the phone, and didn't mind answering questions from patients).

It's unfortunate that 50% of the replies choose to ridicule me for not adding to the junk of the world, when I own a perfectly good and useful piece of medical equipment, and wish to employ it until it is no longer fit for service; I was hoping that most apnea patients recognized that we have struggles aplenty with insurance companies and suppliers who think we should get new sleep studies every Thursday in order to buy a new mask, without hurling abuse at one another when someone asks for assistance from someone who knows better.

They have probably frightened away anybody who might have answered me, but now prefers to keep still lest he, too, become the butt of this idle humor. And they make me rather sorry that I tried to utilize this forum to look for an answer.

[Sleeprider]

No ridicule intended. You are using obsolete equipment for medical therapy. There is no support for that equipment through your doctor, DME or the manufacturer. With all respect, it's time to upgrade.

[OMyMyOHellYes]

It is not so much ridicule, and certainly not a personal attack, as it is an attempt to help out. I framed the age of the equipment in fractional century terms to illustrate just how old the technology really is. I tend to think of 1973 like it was a couple years ago, but when I really look at it and think "man, that was more than 40 years ago!" it puts things in perspective. To me, 1990 is not that far back in my memory.

I seriously doubt that anyone here has any knowledge or reference to a machine that old. You are likely the sole SME on that machine. Respironincs probably doesn't have anyone that could answer your question.

The advances in technology and engineering in the last 25 odd years has been nothing short of miraculous. But that old machine, while it may be able to do what it was engineered to do way back when (and I doubt very much it can, consistently and reliably), is just way behind the curve for what today's technology can provide.

I think of it like this. In the early 1990's I had a Compaq "laptop" computer at work. It was the size of a briefcase, weighed 15 pounds, had a 286 processor running at 12 mhz, had a whopping big 20 MB hard drive, a 9" green monochrome screen and probably 64 or 128K of RAM memory and cost $5,400 in 1990 dollars. I had to use 3.5" floppies to load anything. Battery lasted maybe 2-3 hours. The operating system was a very, very early version of windows which was really just a shell running on top of MS-DOS.

If I still had that machine, and access to a battery that would still work, it would probably pull up and run WordStar and maybe Lotus 123. And maybe a couple of DOS based games. Certainly no browser based internet access! And if it did, with the 2400 baud modem available back then it might take 3 days to load this page in apneaboard.com.

My cell phone is 200, maybe 2,000, times the computer that beast was.

Break - change of theme-

And you can bet when I get on an airplane to go somewhere, I want it to have better nav-comm systems than what were available in the late 1980s. Would they still do what they were designed to do in 1989? Probably. Would they work in today's ATC system? Not real well. And here in a couple of years, all the navaids on which they relied will be shut down because technology has moved past them.

Break - change of theme-

If I have to have surgery, I want a doctor, hospital, and equipment that has kept up to today's standards, not the same surgical techniques, tools and facilities that were in place when the hospital was built 25 years ago. There are probably still some iron lung machines out there that could be made to work, but today's ventilators are infinitely better.

So, sorry if the comments came across as offensive. But I think that there is no answer to the question you asked. The next best answer anyone here can offer is advice to update the hardware. And that's as good as we have to offer. If it's not good enough, then I don't know what else to say.

OMMOHY

[PaulaO2]

Respironics does not add names to any of their equipment, new or old. You have to go by the product number. It is almost always on the bottom of the machine. Going by that number, you can identify the machine and then see if we have the clinician manual. Even if it is older, there is a clinician menu. That's how they set the pressure. The screw was only to calibrate it, not set it.

The problem with an older machine is unless you regularly check it with a manometer (a gauge that checks the pressure it is putting out), it is probably not putting out the pressure you think it is. We want you to get a new-ish machine not to add to the landfill, but to ensure you get the best treatment possible. You can always keep this machine as a backup. Many of us have two machines for just this purpose.

[RobertK]

Respironics does not add names to any of their equipment, new or old. You have to go by the product number. It is almost always on the bottom of the machine. Going by that number, you can identify the machine and then see if we have the clinician manual. Even if it is older, there is a clinician menu. That's how they set the pressure. The screw was only to calibrate it, not set it.

The problem with an older machine is unless you regularly check it with a manometer (a gauge that checks the pressure it is putting out), it is probably not putting out the pressure you think it is. We want you to get a new-ish machine not to add to the landfill, but to ensure you get the best treatment possible. You can always keep this machine as a backup. Many of us have two machines for just this purpose.

There's no "clinician menu" on this machine. There's no "menu" of any kind, and the only thing there is by way of on-board computer is a little mechanical odometer at the bottom which might be an hours-of-use counter. The motor in it was already replaced, once, because at some point, I had a feeling the pressure had dropped, and I think that's when that little dial appeared.

I suspect that under the handle, to the viewer's right of the little screw you turn to change the voltage for Europe (I also used to have to change the fuses when I traveled abroad), there is what appears to be a little hole, and inside the hole, what may be a tiny shaft that is meant to be turned clockwise or counterclockwise with either a special tool or with needle-nose pliers, and that POSSIBLY this is what a clinician would use to set pressure while a manometer was attached.

I don't need to use this machine on a day-to-day basis: I keep it as a backup.

The reason I'm asking is because when the machine I'm using regularly failed, in the middle of the night, and I tried to use this one, I realized it's set for the pressure I used way back then, which is inadequate for me today. When I tried to use it, I was having apneas, and of course, after nearly a quarter-century of successful treatment, I now feel myself waking up when my airways collapse.

I have a ResMed S6 that is working just fine, which I retrieved from storage. I am not going to make garbage out of an old machine that is working just fine, and just needs to be adjusted to be useful to me.

Incidentally, since you're all so fond of the latest and greatest, I had dinner two weeks ago with a couple whose entire home was destroyed by fire, caused by a very recent-model ResMed CPAP which had been recalled unbeknownst to them, for the very reason that it did heat up and start fires. They weren't hurt, because it burst into flame when they were hunting around downstairs to find out why their alarms were going off, and had no idea it was running, upstairs, even though they thought it was off. I think they said it was a ResMed S8 or S9, later than the ResMed models I have.

However, while all the people who don't know the answer to my question are giving me answers to other questions, I got two ideas:

1. Look for Respironics patent documents dated from about 1991; and
   
2. See if I can locate anybody in the greater Pittsburgh area who used to work for Respironics when it was in Murraysville, as indicated on the back of my machine.