Cpapless on Vacation--Oximetry Data is it okay?

[remstarcpap]

Forgot the power brick for my cpap on vacation, but have my trusty oximeter. I'm curious what people think of the numbers without the cpap. I've been sleeping more on my side, so maybe that's the key.

Here they are:


It looks pretty benign to me, with very little time below 88%. But I'm curious what you all think. Thanks for any feedback.

[Georgio]

I think the ER would have put you on oxygen for a good part of the night. Don't forget the BRICK!

[Treehorn]

remstarcpap, I would agree with you. While oximetery does not provide the whole picture I think index number of less than 5 can be pretty good. The low SpO2 of 81 sucks and is an indication of why you are on CPAP but you only had one event below 88% and it was only 0.1 min long.

[mattman]

Here's one of the times that being with a big national DME can actually work fantasically in your favor. If you are with one of them then you should be able to pickup something at your local office to help tide you over - either a power supply you can borrow or another machine if they don't have one.

Otherwise, contact your DME company back at home. They may very well have a contact in the area you are vacationing and can work something out. Even if they don't - they still may be able to get a local company to provide you with something.

We used to do it all the time - both loaning stuff to people travelling in the area who had broken or missing items as well as arranging for our patients to get the same while travelling elsewhere. It's fairly common.

mattman

[cpapqueen1]

You're right Mattman!!! also yet another reason to not use Respironics units!

[Silver Pelt]

remstarcpap, those traces look great. You had only 1 episode of significant desaturation. If I had traces like that, the cpap machine would go in the closet and stay there.

I see you are using the BestMed oximeter - prettty nice, isn't it? I'm using mine to document the lies told by the Respironics machine - it throws AHI flags like confetti, with no corresponding desat in the oximeter data. Whenever the oximeter shows an event, the CPAP machine also sees it, but a huge fraction of the CPAP "events" are figment's of its electronic imagination. I suspect a lot of people here spend a whole lot of time and energy trying to get perfect AHI scores, when in fact the numbers are so polluted by nonsense events they are almost useless.

Good luck. I hope to get to where you are with those oximeter traces some day.

[jinroh]

which model of BestMed oximeter you guys are referring to, is it BM-804? how much does it roughly cost?

[Silver Pelt]

I like the BM-606 oximeter; it has a great display and stores up to 24 hours of data. It costs $153 delivered.
I wrote a short review; you can read it by clicking the link.