Sleep Apnoea and CPAP

Does anyone or their partners use a CPAP machine?

We need to get one for DH and I am struggling with the different ones out there, and the massive variation in price.

There seem to abe a few main brands available, but the two I like the look of, and can best afford, have the least information available. Add to that the incredibly high price compared to the US - but the US sites will ship internation, but only if you have a script from a US Dr - not sure how that one works!

Anyway, if you/your partner have one

Which one do you have
Does if have a humidifier
How loud is it - i.e. can you still get to sleep easily

TIA

Try hiring a few first and see what works best

Hi pandora my DH has a resmed. Nasal mask only. Has a humidifier but he barely uses it. Is quiet enough for me to sleep well. Do u have private health insurance? Ours covered some of cost. HTH xo

Thanks.
Yep, we have PHI, but waiting period for CPAP is not up until December.
I might try hiring one if i can find a place that hires the ones we are looking at.

We have an older respironics one (about 5years old). It has a humidifier and is reasonably quiet I guess. DH needs the humidification as it's a full mask. He can now however snore through it so we need a new assessment. We are looking at upgrading to their newer fully automatic model.
When we bought it 5 years ago I paid $2500 for it, but now the fancier model is about $1600 so has come down in price considerably as the demand has increased.
Respironics have been great with customer service but the cost of parts for it (have needed variously a new set of tubing - DH put it in the bottle steamer to clean it and melted it, a new humidifier tank and now the mask band is fraying) is hefty.

I can't make any specific recommendations regarding brand because all of the ones that I tried on made me claustrophobic. So it is a bit of an ongoing project for me, unfortunately :(.

My question is whether or not your DH has been professionally fitted with one during a sleep study? It isn't only about the mask - they need to check that it fits properly along the contours of his face, whether a nasal or full-face mask would be more effective and lastly, they need to perform a titration (i.e. they measure the degree of pressure required to combat his degree of sleep apnoea in order to keep his airways open). My understanding is that when you have been assessed, you will be sent away with a prescription outlining a full description of the kind of mask required and what titration setting it should have. Just getting recommendations from other people doesn't mean that it will work for your DH. There are hundreds and hundreds of masks on the market and you really do require someone professional to go through which one is best. You also mention that you have PHI - all of these sleep studies and mask-fittings and assesments should be covered - at least mine were / are with a gap fee of $250.

Sorry if I am off the mark here, but from your questions it just sounds like you haven't been through the process I have described above. I am only pointing it out as the last thing I am sure you want is to buy a mask that doesn't do the job 100% as they are so very expensive.

It is such a distressing ailment and I hope you find a solution for your DH soon. Best of luck.

Yes, he has had a sleep study done and report made, but we don't want to go through the same place to buy the machine.
So I was looking at what was available online

PHI won't cover anything until December. Medicare covered much of the sleep study cost, our phi covers $600 on a CPAP machine

ETA: I did some more googling, yes he has had a sleep study, but not the cpap trial where they work out the pressure etc that he needs. So we will see about organizing that, I still don't want to go to the first place though might go to the public hospital (we had a home sleep study done initially but they seem all about sales rather than health)

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Does anyone or their partners use a CPAP machine?

We need to get one for DH and I am struggling with the different ones out there, and the massive variation in price.

There seem to abe a few main brands available, but the two I like the look of, and can best afford, have the least information available. Add to that the incredibly high price compared to the US - but the US sites will ship internation, but only if you have a script from a US Dr - not sure how that one works!

Anyway, if you/your partner have one

Which one do you have
Does if have a humidifier
How loud is it - i.e. can you still get to sleep easily

TIA

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My Mum had one which has just broken after over 10 years. It was a Fisher & Paykel, I'm fairly sure the replacement is too. I don't know which models. The part which finally broke was a cooling fan in it.

The newer ones are very quiet to silent I've heard. I thought they all came with humidifiers?

My aunt just trialed hiring quite s few diff ones. She is in Vic. I will find out where she hired through.

my dh had has the respironics (REmastar auto M Series) with a nasal mask. It doesn't even make a sound while its runnning. It took dh a good 6 months to get used to wearing it though, so be ready for a long haul of complaining that its uncomfortable etc..

The machine has a humidifier, which dh uses during winter (otherwise water drips up his nose).

You definately need the cpap trial to get the right pressure etc otherwise it will be useless.

We went to the public sleep lab and they did it all there.

hope this helps.

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Does anyone or their partners use a CPAP machine?

We need to get one for DH and I am struggling with the different ones out there, and the massive variation in price.

There seem to abe a few main brands available, but the two I like the look of, and can best afford, have the least information available. Add to that the incredibly high price compared to the US - but the US sites will ship internation, but only if you have a script from a US Dr - not sure how that one works!

Anyway, if you/your partner have one

Which one do you have
Does if have a humidifier
How loud is it - i.e. can you still get to sleep easily

TIA

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I purchased a CPAP machine from CPAP Auctions in USA, also a couple of masks. All I had to do was get a prescription from my local doctor in Australia, scan it and send it in an email to CPAP Auctions to be registered, it was accepted. It's a Fisher and Paykel with humidifier and I love it..about half to a third the price of any in Australia, also applies to other brands.
Go to cpapauctions and check it out :)