Turning CPAP Off and Back On During Sleep Interruptions

I'm going through the initial test phase of my cpap usage.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and get up to read until I get sleepy again. When I do, I turn the cpap off and I turn it back on again when I go back to bed. Will this affect the results of the test phase or can I turn the cpap off and back on during a single night without having to worry about something?

What you're doing is exactly what sleep experts recommend. The only question I'd have is whether you're still meeting your minimum hours per day for insurance purposes during your trial period. Do you know whether there's a minimum you need to meet?

Skuddle wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 05, 2024 11:34 am

Will this affect the results of the test phase or can I turn the cpap off and back on during a single night without having to worry about something?

Here's what happens if you take the mask off and just let the machine run while you go do something else.....the machine will know you aren't attached so it will report what we call BND or Breathing Not Detected and that time won't count towards your compliance usage requirements....so you aren't helping meet usage requirements by letting it run.
Doesn't really hurt anything though but doesn't help you any.

Most of us just turn the machine off or we use SmartStart (with AirSense 10 machines) enabled and the machine will turn itself off after about 10 seconds....so no need to manually turn it off.

Now the machine can't tell if you are asleep or not so if you are awake while using the mask and machine.....that time will count towards any compliance usage requirements.

To make my question a bit clearer...

I go to sleep at midnight. At 3 AM I get up, turn my cpap machine off, read for 2 hours, then I turn my cpap machine back on at 5 AM and sleep until 8 AM. How many hours will my ResMed AirSense 10 report (to whomever it reports to over WiFi) as "sleep hours" for that night?

Midnight to 3 AM.....3 hours of use
5 AM to 8 AM....3 hours of use

add them together and you get 6 hours of machine use.

The time spent reading with machine off...doesn't count for anything except no sleep for those 2 hours and no machine use for those 2 hours.

BTW...it's not WiFi....your machine uses cellular phone network system to convey data to MyAir.

Remember the machine doesn't measure sleep status at all so all it can say is that the machine was on for 6 hours total.
They refer more to "usage" hours than "sleep" hours.
Just because you use it doesn't mean you were asleep.