A very delayed response. That's interesting as I have an "in Lab" sleep test coming up in about a month, and while there was no mention of me sleeping on my back, the Doc did say that although he has no problem with me taping my mouth at home, it would be better if I did not during the test. I wonde...

So here’s an interesting bit of news. In an appointment yesterday with a new Sleepy Doc, I said that I was using a nasal mask along with mouth tape. He is the head of the Sleep Lab, and he said that when he was in training at Stanford University back a few years, the attending physician told the cla...

1) I guess by now you know that you can go to the Kaiser "Medical Secretary" or "Member Services" to get what is likely a 10-14 page document regarding your test (no charge). 2) This crap is, at least for me, rather complicated especially with the frequent use of acronyms that often don't describe a...

Maybe I wasn't clear. The Respiratory Therapist only suggested that I try sleeping without the tape and at the same time raise the humidity, that I had lowered to 2 in order to avoid a distilled water crisis while in Italy. I had previously set the humidity at 4 and sometimes 5 in an attempt to dete...

I think I made a great discovery, at least for me. The RT doesn't like me taping my mouth and she said that I should try increasing the humidifier to max, and try to sleep without the tape. In the end, I found that for the first two nights, I had absolutely NO dry mouth at all, and my AHI was < 1, a...

Robysue, God, your stuff is both detailed, helpful, and clear. I should put you an my Christmas card list. Thanks. In answer to your questions, I tried not taping my mouth last night (with the Nasal Mask, I never use a chin strap, and no dental appliance), and this AM SH reported AHI = 1.20 (Hypopne...

Pugsy, I don't know if it makes a difference, but it appears that I have the same machine as you. (Unless your terminology means the same thing.) I have no explanation as to why this is so confusing, but it is. Here's what I think I see on the week long data that the RT produced last time on EncoreP...

Thanks, I'll probably wear my dental appliance if and when I get a good fitting Full Face Mask. What I'd really like to figure out is how to wear the least facial contact mask (nasal pillows), but yet not dry out my mouth. Do we all basically agree that with an AHI around 1.0, mask leakage is pretty...

Pardon me, I misspoke. The dental appliance pushes the lower jaw forward, and this keeps the airway open. Just a little backwards from the earlier post.

Phil

Oh yeah, I forgot about chinstraps. I had told the Res. Therapist about the mouth taping and she went a little nuts. She came up with a "newer" strap, which was pretty tight, both around my chin, but also around my head. So I tried the thing but it did nothing for the mouth breathing mainly, I think...

I am mostly using a nasal mask, but dry mouth is a big problem, but not so much when I tape my mouth (most always). When I use a Full Face Mask with it's greater face contact, it seems to eliminate dry mouth, but my AHI always increases from < 1 to 3-6. I'm planning to set up a mask fitting appointm...

According to my contact in Rome, distilled water is available in both supermarkets and pharmacies.

Phil

How about power? My PR bipap power supply says 110-229 V input. I'm assuming that I would then only then need an adapter plug, not a transformer, correct?

Phil

How about distilled water for the humidifier, is it readily available in Italy or will the C-Pap survive one month of regular water?

Also, is the "Medical Device" tag essential, and if so, do you just make one up yourself? Seems like you can just easily show that it's a medical device.

Phil

Another aspect here is that those of us who are interested in being in charge of and understanding and managing their therapy, likely represent a small % of total patients. And we'll be "dying off" either literally or through current unreplaceable machine failure. The future does not look bright her...