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Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
#11
RE: Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
The only true reason I can see for doing this is to ensure that patients get the proper pressure they need for the therapy to work, and all the supplies and support they need for long term treatment. Now, having said that, I also believe that many of the doctors and DMEs really have no idea. They titrate based on a study where the subject cannot sleep or not enough sleep or only one day out of many, etc. They have only a vague idea of what it takes to strap this on every night and the increased battles we go through. Very few doctors are hose-heads therefore very few really do understand. I'm sure the decision to make this a prescribed item was made with the best of intentions. However, like most things the original intention is probably lost to the annals of time and we end up with a shadow of the perfect world that was the example in the original intention. So we rage against the machine, so to speak, and we D/L manuals and hints and have backroom conversations in order to provide ourselves with the care we need. I don't see the need to allow this to impinge on my life. My doctor has been trying to get me to quit riding my motorcycle for years and I don't listen to him about that, what do you figure are the chances I am going to listen about something much less risky? They talk, I smile and nod. We've both done our jobs. Life goes on.
As always, YMMV! You do not have to agree or disagree, I am not a professional so my mental meanderings are simply recollections of things from my own life.

PRS1 - Auto - A-Flex x2 - 12.50 - 20 - Humid x2 - Swift FX
#12
RE: Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
ok ok I hear you but lets look at this from a different angle and yes Im still looking for a case history which I should find. Is a central apnea dangerous if yes then theres my case.

hypertheticly: lets say some newbie turned their machine up beyond what they need and they have a central apnea and lets also say that for some reason they dont reboot and die, is this not possible? There are a hundred ways that it could kill you and thats why you need a perscription to have one otherwise Resmed and the like would be sued to high heaven if something went wrong. Please dont get complacent with cpap it can save your life but there are cases that it didnt:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
My son died from sleep apnea, in his sleep, with CPAP.

by Joan Kincey
(Woking Surrey UK)

My son, Michael, was diagnosed with sleep apnoea four yrs before he passed away suddenly in his sleep in November 2010, he always wore his cpap mask without fail ,unfortunately,it didnt save his life.

When I look back now, my son had snored very loudly for quite a few years,and it was treated as a joke,we had never even heard of sleep apnoea.

My son had always snored extremely loudly,which we all joked about. That is until he was staying with me one weekend,and I heard him making this awful choking sound.

I rushed in to him, and he then told me this happened quite often.

I insisted he went to see his GP when he got back home, which he did, and was referred to a sleep clinic.

He was assessed over night,and was told he had sleep apnoea ,and supplied more or less immediately with cpap equipment, which as I said before he never failed to use.

If went away overnight he always took it with him.

I now think he had been suffering with this a long time before he was diagnosed, therefore all his organs in his body had been overworked, as we now know they can as I have since found out much to my regret.

Wen they carried out a post mortem on my son the Coroner stated sleep apnoea, as main cause, and a partially blocked left ventricle in his heart.

My son was 46 yrs old.

If we had only known just what this was... but due to lack of awareness,and ignorance, we had absoluteley no idea. Had we been better informed my son might still be wih us...

Since he passed away I have tried my best to make others aware how serious,sleep apnoea can be, as I would hate anyone to go through what I have and still am due to ignorance.

Also by doing this it is helping me come to terms with the tragic death of my dear son Michael.

I also feel he wont have died in vain ,if my story helps anyone else,

Sincerely, Joan Kincey (a sad mum)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
When most people have other conditions on top of sleep apnea its only a matter of time before someone dies because of machine tampering and I would be the first to say I told you so. If machines were not dangerous then why all the fuss from changing pressures, why all the docs shouting dont mess with pressures. can you put your hand on your heart or tell some newbie, "Go ahead and change your pressure, it's perfectly safe"


#13
RE: Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
(06-22-2012, 12:37 PM)Dreamcatcher Wrote: Is a central apnea dangerous if yes then theres my case.

Centrals are no more dangerous than obstructive events - they both have equally bad effects upon one's health. And, there is still no proof in any large sample study that excessive pressures actually cause centrals. There's a TON of talk about how too much pressure can cause centrals... but again, no proof using a scientifically significant group of patients. A lot of anecdotal evidence and statements of opinion, but not much else to prove that this is the case.

Quote:hypertheticly: lets say some newbie turned their machine up beyond what they need and they have a central apnea and lets also say that for some reason they dont reboot and die, is this not possible? There are a hundred ways that it could kill you and thats why you need a perscription to have one otherwise Resmed and the like would be sued to high heaven if something went wrong. Please dont get complacent with cpap it can save your life but there are cases that it didnt:

DC, no one is suggesting that patients become complacent with their CPAP treatment.

Yes, anything is possible. But if you're going to go by that criteria for the requirement of a prescription, then why not require a prescription for food, since you could overeat and die early from obesity complications? Why not require a prescription for water, since you could drink to much and suffer from water intoxication? You get my drift - anything, when is abused or taken to an extreme can be harmful to one's health... that doesn't mean that we need to require prescriptions for everything in life.


Quote:My son died from sleep apnea, in his sleep, with CPAP.

by Joan Kincey
(Woking Surrey UK)

Sad story, but it really doesn't provide any support for the contention that increasing CPAP pressure too much can kill someone. Not at all.... in fact, simply read the article where the father says:

Quote:Wen they carried out a post mortem on my son the Coroner stated sleep apnoea, as main cause, and a partially blocked left ventricle in his heart.

It was the years of untreated Sleep Apnea and the blocked left ventricle in his heart that caused his death... not too much CPAP pressure.

Years of untreated sleep apnea can kill, yes. And the father states this here:
Quote:When I look back now, my son had snored very loudly for quite a few years,and it was treated as a joke,we had never even heard of sleep apnoea.

This tells me that the son had not been on CPAP all those years... it was this untreated OSA that caused his death, not the CPAP treatment at all.

Dreamcatcher Wrote:When most people have other conditions on top of sleep apnea its only a matter of time before someone dies because of machine tampering and I would be the first to say I told you so. If machines were not dangerous then why all the fuss from changing pressures, why all the docs shouting dont mess with pressures. can you put your hand on your heart or tell some newbie, "Go ahead and change your pressure, it's perfectly safe"

CPAP first began to be used in 1981. Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of patients have been using CPAP since that time. Especially lately, a growing percentage of people in that group have been scientifically and logically making small adjustments to their own CPAP pressure with no major ill effects - in fact, when they use the software programs like ResScan and SleepyHead, they find that their AHI levels can be greatly reduced if they take an active role in their own therapy and yes, even when they adjust their own pressures.

We don't tell "newbies" to CPAP to "go ahead and change your pressure".... in fact we suggest that they DO NOT change their pressures themselves until they have given their current prescribed pressure(s) time to work.

Here's our page on that:

http://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap-pr...re-on-cpap

Please read that page completely and you'll understand that what we recommend is not a willy-nilly changing of pressure on a whim. It's very scientifically-controlled and monitored, using common sense and a little bit of knowledge on how to change pressures safely, slowly and productively to decrease one's overall AHI levels.

Anything can be "dangerous" if not used correctly. That includes CPAP, yes. But to recommend that OSA patients NEVER try to adjust their own pressures is a disservice to Sleep Apnea patients - especially to those who don't have health care insurance or who have no financial means to pay for continuing visits to the sleep doctor for pressure adjustments.

Thanks for listening. Smile




SuperSleeper
Apnea Board Administrator
www.ApneaBoard.com


INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.


#14
RE: Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
Quote:Please dont get complacent with cpap it can save your life but there are cases that it didnt:

This from the man who does not take his CPAP while on vacation?

The story you shared is sad, yes, but its message is "get diagnosed", not "Don't mess with your pressure". Its message isn't even "stop using CPAP and you die".

If this guy shrugged off the waking up gasping for breath ("I rushed in to him, and he then told me this happened quite often.") then he probably had other symptoms for the heart valve.
PaulaO

Take a deep breath and count to zen.




#15
RE: Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
(06-22-2012, 12:37 PM)Dreamcatcher Wrote: When most people have other conditions on top of sleep apnea its only a matter of time before someone dies because of machine tampering and I would be the first to say I told you so. If machines were not dangerous then why all the fuss from changing pressures, why all the docs shouting dont mess with pressures. can you put your hand on your heart or tell some newbie, "Go ahead and change your pressure, it's perfectly safe"

I guess I just don't understand. No where in the article was machine tampering discussed. All that was said was that the patient was extremely compliant.

The coroner also did not draw any conclusions that the partially blocked artery had anything to do with the patients OSA or his CPAP machine. Now many of us believe that not using a CPAP and allowing OSA to run it's course will damage parts of your body, and potentially cause death, but I have never seen empirical evidence of this either. I don't disagree with OSA being destructive, I'm just sayin....

Proving whether or not increasing pressure can cause problems, up to and including death, requires some pretty serious, controlled study and taking this type of an article as evidence does not provide that proof. I'm pretty sure lowering your pressure can be bad because it may not keep your airway clear, but that is just me being logical, I have no proof of that either.

Is changing the setting on a piece of medical equipment something patients should do? Well, let's look at the pain med dispensers. I'm talking the ones that dispense hard-core narcotics. They give you a button to push and it will continue to dispense until you have hit your limit. That being the limit that could cause damage or kill you. Now let's look at CPAP machines. They do not have the ability to be cranked up as high as you want. They have an upwards limit which if memory serves is something like 20 or somewhere in that neighborhood. So can we say that figuring out a way to raise your machines beyond the limits is bad? Yes, I would agree with that, if for no other reason than you might hurt yourself with a screwdriver. Is raising it higher than prescribed within the limits of the machine bad? Can't say that I would believe so. I have raised mine from 10 to 11 and 11 is comfortable for me and keeps my airway open. 10 does not keep my aiirway open. I can feel it collapse as I start to fall asleep on 10. I feel good on 11, therefore 11 it is! If I kill myself I have no one to blame but me!
As always, YMMV! You do not have to agree or disagree, I am not a professional so my mental meanderings are simply recollections of things from my own life.

PRS1 - Auto - A-Flex x2 - 12.50 - 20 - Humid x2 - Swift FX
#16
RE: Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
As in every prescription insert it says your doctor has decided the advantages to you are greater than the risk of side effects. I believe the concept of cpap forcing air into the body is a little off base. The cpap splints the airway open, it does not force air into your lungs.
#17
RE: Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
And as demonstrated by someone's experiment, it barely blew up a balloon.
PaulaO

Take a deep breath and count to zen.




#18
RE: Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
(06-22-2012, 05:19 PM)PaulaO2 Wrote: And as demonstrated by someone's experiment, it barely blew up a balloon.

Actually, it didn't even do that. It only "inflated" the balloon enough to not make it limp anymore... didn't expand the rubber hardly at all. That thread is HERE.

Thinking-about
SuperSleeper
Apnea Board Administrator
www.ApneaBoard.com


INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.


#19
RE: Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
Stick a straw 8 inches deep into a glass of water. Gently blow air until bubbles come out the bottom.

That's the maximum pressure a CPAP machine can generate. (20 cmH20).

The main harm I see is if you don't use the CPAP properly and don't get the benefit. For instance, a whiny user who needs 15 cm and turns it down to 5 cm because it's "too rough." Or patients who need help fixing the problems and drop out because they aren't getting help from their doctor or DME.

While that's a valid argument to require a prescription, I think the real main reason is to protect the medical mafia's profits.

It also ignores the people who go without CPAP because they can't afford the expensive sleep study and doctor's visits. Or can't sleep in the sleep lab. Or are unwilling to put up with the discomfort and time of the sleep study. Or can't afford the prices generated by a closed distribution system and an oligopoly of manufacturers who don't compete on price.

One other important reason is that insurance might not pay for it if a prescription wasn't required.

There are a few things such as "bullous lung disease" that can be harmed by CPAP.

I feel pretty sure that the current system of restricting access and keeping prices up harms far more people than it helps because there are more people who drop out or don't start because of the cost.

Especially with the fact that our healthcare system has essentially failed in recent years.
Get the free OSCAR CPAP software here.
Useful links.
Click here for information on the main alternative to CPAP.
If it's midnight and a DME tells you it's dark outside, go and check it yourself.
#20
RE: Dangers of Using a CPAP Machine
Talk about kicking a man when he's wrong Too-funny I must pay attention in class Unsure

Sorry guys and gals I was just taking the otherside to see if the argument stood up but it fell flat as my Mrs wheelchair tires Laugh-a-lot

There is no cases that I can find of anyone being harmed by a machine.


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