Sleep Apnea Support Group
Sleep apnea is a common sleep disorder characterized by brief interruptions of breathing during sleep. People with sleep apnea partially awaken as they struggle to breathe, but in the morning they may not be aware of sleep disturbances.
Hi there. New to this group. I would appreciate any thoughts on my situation. I was feeling tired for many years and my doctor sent me in for a sleep test for apnea. They gave me a portable unit to use at home. The tech, a nice guy, told me that there were 3 possible outcomes: 1) I would be positive for apnea, 2) I would be negative and 3) It would be inconclusive. Since the machine itself was considered unreliable, results 2 & 3 would lead to a hostpital stay study to get better data. Essentially, it seemed like I was just jumping through an insurance hoop in order to get to the next step (sorry, a little jaded when it comes to insurance companies). Anyway, I brought the box back in the next day and the person analysed the data while I waited. I had figured that I would ge result # 3, since the machine seemed to be constantly warning me that one of the sensores wasn't recording. Also, I was on my back the whole night with it, which made me wonder if the experiment was flawed. The doctor said that I had 5.6 apnea events per hour. I had no idea if this was a little or a lot. He said that it was moderate. Does that sound right to you? Also, he went on to say that he'd be happy to order me a CPAP machine through my insurance and did I want to go ahead with that. I know very little about apneas & machines and asked to see a sleep doctor before making any decisions. I thought that it was odd that the next step was just to grab some rand machine. There seem to be so many out there with various features & masks. I had no idea how to use it. I called the sleep doctor and was told that I could make an appointment for a few months from now, but I had to have a month's worh of data before she'd see me. I'm left here with little information on what apneas are to start with machines and whether my test was even any good. My main question for this group is, does this sound right? Is this how things roll during an apnea diagnosis? I dodn't want to be negative towards a system that's trying to help me, but I feel like I need to do some advocacy on my part before I start treatment. Does this make sense?
Many thanks for any observations.
CC
If your insurance allows, or if you can swing the costs, I would recommend a in lab study before buying anything. In my case, somehow the doctor's office managed to get both studies done and each billed as an office visit, so my copay was $30 for each test. Very good, and I suspect unusual costs.
Once you are sure that you need to proceed (and you are based on your post) the fun really begins; buying the machine. IMO, there seems to be a big scam going on at this point. Your doctor will refer you to their preferred DME, which will then sell you a machine that they want to sell you at often a very inflated price. The inflated pricing assumes that your insurance will be paying the biggest share of the costs, which may or may not be true depending on your insurance, deductible, and co-pay. In my case, I had to pay 100% because I had not met any of my deductible, but they (the DME) said that they would make be a deal and only charge me one-half the price of what they would charge the insurance company. Sounded great, but it was still double the price that I would have paid elsewhere.
Many times when you take into consideration your costs with deductibles, or high copays, it may be in your best situation to buy your equipment from a good online supplier such as my favorite cpap.com. If I had know of this before being stuck with a poor machine, I would have never bought the machine from the DME.
About six months later, I did replace my poor quality machine with a top-of-the-line model and now use my old machine for backup only.
This board and DS as a whole is very slow. I recommend that you repost your post on one or both of the SA only board at the links below. You will get many, many more responses I promise. Good luck!
http://www.cpaptalk.com/CPAP-Sleep-Apnea-Forum.html
http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/index.php
I felt that CPAP seemed a little scammy at first due to the seeming indifference the docs had to the long wait times I had to deal with between appointments etc. This after their telling me about the "severity" of my apnea. I did my research though and their is validity to their concerns. It's just that in general, sleep apnea is not seen as an imminent threat to kill you before the next sunrise and so the seeming whatever attitude of the medical staff is learned over time I surmise. At any rate I would not be surprised if you could eliminate SA by side sleeping as your back sleeping AHI is borderline. Good luck.