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New and Confused
#1
New and Confused
Hello all, I'm Chris, I am new to everything that is apnea. Well, not everything since I've had sleep apnea for most of my life but just never did anything about it. So my reasoning for being here is that I was gifted a used Resmed S9, basic model not auto, machine with H5i humidifier from a family friend...but also wanted to say hello and kind of introduce myself. I'm still learning the ins and outs of all of this but it all seems so overwhelming that I was hoping to relieve some of my stress before my new mask, hose and filters get in next week. 

So the first thing I did was reset the device to factory settings and formatted the included SD card so that it should be default out of the box condition. I downloaded the Sleepyhead software. Will this work for me to figure out what settings I need without doing a sleep study? If not is there anything I can do that doesn't require a sleep study? I apologize in advance if I ask questions that are very basic or simple, I just haven't a clue about any of this and have never looked up CPAP machines before let alone APAP or VPAP as I didn't even know those two existed. Having said that is there any basic information that I need to know starting out? 

I've also cleaned both machines exterior and am now soaking the inner container from the humidifier in a water vinegar wash. Still though is there a way to clean the machine so to get rid of the previous owner's smell? They only used it a month but that's still a month of their odor I'll be breathing in.

Thanks in advance for any advice.
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#2
RE: New and Confused
G'day Sky Puncher. Welcome to Apnea Board.

If you've never had a diagnostic sleep test, it's probably a good idea to get one if you can afford it and/or you have insurance. Those done in a sleep lab are the most comprehensive, but you can also get home tests at a much lower cost. A comprehensive sleep test will help determine if you actually do have sleep apnea, how severe it is and whether it is ordinary obstructive apnea or includes an element of central apnea. If done properly it will also check out a lot of other things such as the general health of your heart and lungs. The test includes an ECG and EEG.

You say that you've had apnea most of your life - I assume you have the normal signs such as loud snoring, gasping for breath, excessive daytime sleepiness?

Turning to your machine, if it's a non-auto S9 it's most likely either an Escape or Elite. This will be printed near the power button. An Elite is fine and will give you a fixed pressure and full data capability. The Escape is what we disparagingly refer to as a "brick". It won't give any data apart from usage hours. If you do have an Escape then you won't get any useful data and you'll only be guessing at your settings. Better off getting rid of it and buying a better machine.

Regarding cleaning - there are no user-serviceable parts inside the S9 blower unit and no easy way to clean it other than taking the whole thing apart. There is a small filter on the inlet side (near the power input) which should be changed regularly. You should change out the hose, mask, filter and the rubber gasket inside the lid of the humidifier. Cleaning the humidifier tank in vinegar is OK, so long as you thoroughly rinse it afterwards. You refer to the smell and odour of the previous owner. Because the air flows in a one-way path through the machine and up the tube there shouldn't be any trace of the person inside the machine. However if they are smokers or have pets in the bedroom, it's possible you'll get some residual from that. You could try putting a strong fragrance such as vanilla extract or eucalyptus oil on a cotton ball and place that next to the air inlet. As the machine runs the fragrance will be wafted through the machine and remove other odours.

Hope this helps - please don't hesitate to ask any other questions.
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#3
RE: New and Confused
You could turn off smart start turn the machine on and just let it blow for 24 hrs
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#4
RE: New and Confused
Welcome to the forum skypuncher.
Hope to see your progress

Gerry
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#5
RE: New and Confused
Welcome to the forum Sky Puncher! Glad you found us! Sounds like you are off to a great start and are already learning a lot as you go. Best of luck!
APNEABOARD - A great place to be if you're a hosehead!!  Rolleyes  

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EVERY ACCOMPLISHMENT BEGINS WITH THE DECISION TO TRY!
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#6
RE: New and Confused
Hi, Chris.  I had a good low-AHI night and I don't have to be anywhere else this morning, so I'll babble for a few pars (you're welcome).

As DB said, a sleep study is a very good thing to go for if you have insurance and if you're not certain of the diagnosis or severity of your condition.  That'll tell you what's what and, if you are afflicted, it'll give you a prescription for machine and mask, which opens a lot of doors.  The Rx is valid long-term and is not limited to any vendor; you can use it to buy equipment on your own over the next few years, without the involvement of insurance provider and Durable Medical Equipment (DME) supplier.  But if you do have insurance and if it will greatly reduce your out-of-pocket expenses (low deductible), then by all means use that and go for the DME trip.  The cost savings can make it worth putting up with a lot of hassle.

Also as DB said, the specific model of S9 is all-important, and don't forget to update your profile/sidebar with that.  If it turns out that you need a different machine to get the full data and APAP, and if you can afford to buy it yourself, that's easy if you have the Rx because (for instance) Supplier #2 (there's also a link to that list at the top of the page) sells used machines at reasonable prices.  Generally, from any manufacturer, a machine that includes the word "Auto" in its model name will be the one you want.  Without the Rx, you might need to buy on Amazon or from a private seller on craigslist or ebay or whatever, but another approach is to explore all of the suppliers in the list here to find out which ones don't ask for a copy of the Rx when you order or immediately afterward.

The choice of mask is all-important for comfort and for continuing to use the machine consistently over the first few months.  An uncomfortable or leaky mask can put you off the whole thing, so you will need to persevere.  Mask preference is mostly subjective and the differences among the various makes & models can be huge but will often vary from one person to another.  It's important not to assume that any mask will work OK or even that the second one you try will be the one to stay with indefinitely.  It might take one or two more than that, but the reviews in the "Mask Reviews" forum should help quite a bit.  For starters, if you haven't already done so, you can read the "Mask Primer" here: http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...ask_Primer

Obviously you have been reading in the discussions and wiki here, but unfortunately that's a never-ending chore and I recommend continuing it for a while whenever you have some time to spare.  There doesn't seem to be a set of the traditional FAQs as such (to build that would be a huge task and would take half of forever, I think; the discussions with the raw material here go back years), so the information that you need for getting started is scattered through many, many board posts and some wiki articles.  Maybe it'd be best to start with the wiki, scan the subjects there and read what's relevant, and then try some searches of the board in general using whatever keywords are most important for you at the moment.  One minor gotcha is that the search feature here won't accept terms shorter than four characters, but you can always use an external search engine: for instance, with Google you would include the term site:apneaboard.com to limit the search to this domain.

If you ever get bogged down with the mask-and-machine experience (which can be stressful or annoying at first) and are tempted to give it all up as not worth the trouble, just do some reading in the thread "Your Personal CPAP Success Story", maybe starting at the end (most recent) and working backward page by page.  This stuff does work extremely well for most patients, and the results over just a few weeks of consistent use (100% compliance: 8 hours every night or whatever) can be amazing.

Cheers ...
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#7
RE: New and Confused
"G'day Sky Puncher. Welcome to Apnea Board.

If you've never had a diagnostic sleep test, it's probably a good idea to get one if you can afford it and/or you have insurance. Those done in a sleep lab are the most comprehensive, but you can also get home tests at a much lower cost. A comprehensive sleep test will help determine if you actually do have sleep apnea, how severe it is and whether it is ordinary obstructive apnea or includes an element of central apnea. If done properly it will also check out a lot of other things such as the general health of your heart and lungs. The test includes an ECG and EEG."

I just can't afford it, not even the home kit. If it weren't for the kindness of a family friend I wouldn't even be here. 

"You say that you've had apnea most of your life - I assume you have the normal signs such as loud snoring, gasping for breath, excessive daytime sleepiness?"


The general symptoms I suppose. Girlfriends telling me I'd stop breathing during the night and that my snore was pretty bad but also I've caught myself a few times waking up gasping for air which had me confused at first but the more it happened the more I could tell I wasn't breathing. Also, I most of the time feel like I haven't gotten any sleep at all even though I slept all through the night. When I was a teenager I just thought it was having school and a job coupled with me still growing...can't really say that now that I'm in my 30s.

"Turning to your machine, if it's a non-auto S9 it's most likely either an Escape or Elite. This will be printed near the power button. An Elite is fine and will give you a fixed pressure and full data capability. The Escape is what we disparagingly refer to as a "brick". It won't give any data apart from usage hours. If you do have an Escape then you won't get any useful data and you'll only be guessing at your settings. Better off getting rid of it and buying a better machine."

The only thing printed near the power button is: Top Left VPAP S Bottom Right: Easy-Breathe. I noticed that the machine doesn't give any detailed information from me just starting it up but once I got into the secret button presses it gave a lot more information for me to change. It was how I reset the machine to Factory. The only thing I know about the machine is that the person who had it before me died a month into using it. It has one SD card along the back and some sort of USB attachment port for doctors to gather data. That's about it. And if this is a "brick" then I'm just stuck with it or allowing my issue to get worse. I don't really have a lot of options here.

"Regarding cleaning - there are no user-serviceable parts inside the S9 blower unit and no easy way to clean it other than taking the whole thing apart. There is a small filter on the inlet side (near the power input) which should be changed regularly. You should change out the hose, mask, filter and the rubber gasket inside the lid of the humidifier. Cleaning the humidifier tank in vinegar is OK, so long as you thoroughly rinse it afterwards. You refer to the smell and odour of the previous owner. Because the air flows in a one-way path through the machine and up the tube there shouldn't be any trace of the person inside the machine. However if they are smokers or have pets in the bedroom, it's possible you'll get some residual from that. You could try putting a strong fragrance such as vanilla extract or eucalyptus oil on a cotton ball and place that next to the air inlet. As the machine runs the fragrance will be wafted through the machine and remove other odours. 


Hope this helps - please don't hesitate to ask any other questions."

Thanks for replying, it's greatly appreciated. I think I'll try the scented answer to solve my odor question. From what I can gather the machine's inside is stained with the scent of where it was kept last. You said it's a one-way air flow well the air from the previous owner blew into the machine for a month and I guess kept it there. It doesn't smell awful or anything but it smells like someone else's home and that's all I'll be thinking about if I ever manage to use the thing. 
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#8
RE: New and Confused
(05-12-2018, 06:32 AM)Sky Puncher Wrote: The only thing printed near the power button is: Top Left VPAP S Bottom Right: Easy-Breathe

That model has no APAP (auto-titration).  Sad  That's bad luck; sorry to hear it.

Edited to add: What make & model of mask do you have on order? Again don't forget to update your profile.
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#9
RE: New and Confused
(05-11-2018, 10:33 PM)Sky Puncher Wrote: Will this work for me to figure out what settings I need without doing a sleep study?

"How to find the optimum pressure on your constant-pressure CPAP machine" by SuperSleeper and the members of the Apnea Board Forum

and

Optimizing therapy
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#10
RE: New and Confused
Sky Puncher,
What you appear to have is an S9 Vpap S BiLevel.  This machine has a Cpap mode (straight pressure) and a BiLevel mode.  
This machine may be data capable, I’m thinking it is.  Can someone confirm?

Go ahead and download the free #SleepyHead software and once you use the machine, see if you can
use the SD card with the software.  

My suggestion is to set up in Cpap mode to start with a lower pressure, since we don’t know the severity of your sleep apnea.  

It may be harder to find the correct pressure for you, but not impossible.

You can order a Clinicians manual, see link at top of page.
https://www.apneaboard.com/resmed-s9-cpap-setup
OpalRose
Apnea Board Administrator
www.apneaboard.com

_______________________
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OSCAR - The Guide
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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.
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