New to Apnea? Helpful tips to ensure success
New to Apnea - helpful tips to ensure success
Contents
- 1 Understanding Sleep Apnea
- 2 New to CPAP – The Process
- 3 Do you have your records
- 4 Prescription - CPAP - APAP - BIPAP
- 5 CPAP Machine Choices - read this before you accept a new machine
- 6 Setup Manuals - Change your own xPAP Pressure
- 7 Optimizing therapy
- 8 Using SleepyHead
- 9 Help pages
- 10 Posting in Forum
Understanding Sleep Apnea
Understanding_sleep_apnea a description of what apnea is from a couple of well written forum articles.
New to CPAP – The Process
New to CPAP – The Process Defining the process from denial thru getting your machine, a what to expect article.
Do you have your records
Do you have your records? HPAA may be a pain in the . . . but it does give you the rights ( hipaa-privacy-rule-patients-rights ) to your medical information. This includes your Sleep study/studies, titration records and prescription(s). Having these may prevent you from having to repeat a Sleep or Titration Study.
Prescription - CPAP - APAP - BIPAP
Prescription - CPAP - APAP - BIPAP Sample Prescriptions, recommended xPAP machines.
CPAP Machine Choices - read this before you accept a new machine
CPAP-Machine-Choices-read-this-before-you-accept-a-new-machine do you want a brick? Didn't think so.
Setup Manuals - Change your own xPAP Pressure
Clinician Setup Manuals - Change your own xPAP Pressure The nitty gritty of manipulating YOUR machine. For forum members only, and a couple of steps, but you can change ANY setting on your machine.
Optimizing therapy
Optimizing therapy The basic steps to adjusting your therapy
Using SleepyHead
Using SleepyHead - Data is the key to getting good feedback, and SleepyHead is among the best software to see how you and your machine got along last night. Download SleepyHead (free) Just click on the icon for your operating system, then click on the downloaded file.
Organize your Sleepyhead charts Very important,
Post from Imgur a link from an outside source (easy)
RobySue's Beginner's Guide to SleepyHead an awesome detailed reference to SleepyHead and interpretation of the data
Mask Primer pretty much everything about selecting, fitting, and using your mask, including leaks
Help pages
The Help button at top of page, where you will find many "how to" articles is another excellent resource.
Posting in Forum
For suggestions to tune/tweak your settings the best thing is to make a forum query. ( http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Forum-M...oard-Forum ) Read the below suggestions.
- Start a new thread. Add all your inquires to this new thread because this will retain your history for us in the responses to your queries.
- If you don’t have all this info don’t worry about it. As a general rule the more info we have, the better the advice you will get.
- Using multiple posts is acceptable.
- What type of Apnea do you have? (Obstructive, Central, Complex, Hyponea, RLS) Have you posted your sleep studies? (They have this information) If not post your Sleep Studies. It is especially important to know if you have Central or Complex Apnea.
- Include your daily charts. They include a lot of data that is used as the basis of advice delivered
- How do you feel? This relates to all things comfort and intangible things (my nose hurts)
- What do you want to know more about? What's giving you the greatest difficulty?
- Don't use the "Reply with quote" button button until you have familiarized yourself with its use. That's why we have threads, the info is in the above posts (history).
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