Help with New 960

[racprops]

I need help understanding how the four pressure settings interact.
My current settings are:
Max Pressure:25
EVAP min: 4
EPAP max: 20
PSmin: 5
PSmax: 19
BPM: Auto
Bi-Flex: Auto
With these settings I get exhale: 5 cmH2O
Inhale of only 9 cmH2O
I cannot figure out why I cannot get the inhale pressure higher, if I lower the exhale to 4 cm then the inhale drops to 8 cm.

Also I seem to be unable to set the PSmin higher that 5 cm.

Hitting this setting wall worried me at first, my old 950 running at a inhale pressure of 9 cm would make me feel short of breath, I had to set the 950 at 12 cm to not feel starved for air.

But I looked up my Doctor’s titration report and 9 cm was the best results so I tried it and found with the 960 I had no shortness of breath.
So I was OK at these settings.

But I fear I may need more and want to understand how to set these things.

OK Last night seems to have gone fairly good, but is these readings alright?

Note how the mask pressure when up during the sleep cycles, any suggestions?

I also cannot seem to find Sleepyhead’s O2 recordings, it will upload and will show the graphs but once closed they disappear and if I try to open them again they seem gone. I am having to use another program to keep these records.

Here are the Sleepyhead reports:












Why do I need help with a 960??

A very sad note it seems after about a year and ½ my sleep 950 machine was failing..

First thing one has to get used to with one of these things is what I can a humping face hugger…As my machine is a by-flex machine which allow a large drop in pressure to allow me to exhale at 4.0 cmH2O and the on inhale jumps up to 12 cmH2O the face mask also pumps up and down from this pressure change…

So I KNOW how this feels.. and it no longer loves me the humping is weak and ill regular a good hump for a couple of breaths and the weaker and weaker until it hardly moves. On and off all night…ever thou the readout said it is running at full and correct pressure..

This drop in power and pressure has happened all by its self…I have changed nothing…for three days it ran fine and the mask was happy humping away on my face, last night that became unreliable ..and all my problems came back:

I had 4.87 Hypopnea events, 2.56 Clear Airway Apnea events, and .59 Periodic Breathing events for a total AHI reading of 7.43.

And I fear that is a low reading as it is not working right so with underpowered pressure I bet it is unable to correctly read all the events.
Last night I woke up feeling how weak the machine was, and could even feel it changing, a couple of good powerful breaths then fade to some so week the mask did not more at all and I felt a little like I had to suck in the air. Then it would pick up again and go back up in pressure, and down and higher and so on all along…

I posted on a CPAP Forum about my problems and one of the answers was:

"The 950 series have a design flaw where the connectors to the pressure sensors can get loose. The 960 series put a big screw through the circuit board over the pressure sensors to hold it down tight."

I also got this feedback

I asked does the readout on the machine report real pressure of settings??

“It only reports the current machine pressure "setting". The only way to check the ACTUAL pressure coming from the hose would be with a manometer.”

So the readout on the machine is more or less worthless.


Looking back I regret that this may have been happening for a few months. Unfortunately, one can believe the device is doing all it possibly can and yet not be delivering the help one really needs; the reports can look great yet you’re still diminished.

On a very sad note it seems after about a year and ½ my sleep machine is also failing..

Friday night all my gains fell away…and I think I know why…

First thing one has to get used to with one of these things is what I can a humping face hugger…As my machine is a by-flex machine which allow a large drop in pressure to allow me to exhale at 4.0 cmH2O and the on inhale jumps up to 12 cmH2O the face mask also pumps up and down from this pressure change…

So I KNOW how this feels.. and it no longer loves me: the humping is weak and ill regular a good hump for a couple of breaths and the weaker and weaker until it hardly moves. On and off all night…ever thou the readout said it is running at full and correct pressure.

Also at times it make sounds it has not done before, the most common is like a fuzz sound at the end of some of the week inhales…

This drop in power and pressure has happened all by its self…I have changed nothing…for three days it ran fine and the mask was happy humping away on my face, A little weakly I will find out Sunday night, read on..) last night that became unreliable ..and all my problems came back:

I had 4.87 Hypopnea events, 2.56 Clear Airway Apnea events, and .59 Periodic Breathing events for a total AHI reading of 7.43.

And I fear that is a low reading as it is not working right so with underpowered pressure I bet it is unable to correctly read all the events.

Last night I woke up feeling how weak the machine was, and could even feel it changing, a couple of good powerful breaths then fade to some so week the mask did not more at all and I felt a little like I had to suck in the air. Then it would pick up again and go back up in pressure, and down and higher and so on all along…

Also my recording O2 meter reports I hit some lows as well: My O2 dropped to a low of .86 and my heart bead to a low of 44BPM.

Sadly I am learning that we need to watch out of these machines going bad, and often in misleading ways, like my old Blood Pressure meter:

I had to replace my blood pressure tester when for months it kept showing good low readings. I got a little suspicious though, as it would show lower and lower readings every time I retested it one right after the other. I could start with a reading of 140/80 and retest and get 139/ 79 and then 135/76 and so on. I had my BP tested by a doctor and found my pressure does not keep going down as the tester would seem to indicate.

The newer and better machine does not drop like that and will show lower AND higher with retesting, a much truer testing. In fact it does a set of three and then averages the sum of all three.

Without my machine(s) pressure sensors working properly, it cannot report the true facts nor work correctly.

I am delighted to report that I am receiving great service from Secondwind CPAP.

Not only did Mark understand my problem and my findings, he then not only offered to replace my unit by overnight UPS, he also offered to upgrade my 950 for the newer upgraded 960 (with the reported improvement correcting the flaw).

In this cynical age of low quality customer service, I am VERY impressed by Mark’s genuine concern that I get a good machine. He says that he will be contacting Philips about these problems.

I have the highest praise for Secondwind CPAP and highly recommend them.

All decisions are made BADly. (BAD= Best Available Data)

I did my best based on the readings I was getting (but if the data is bad so is the adjustment s made) and by how well I felt.

I think I may have to do some readjustments with a now correctly working 960 machine.

I will see.