Sleep Study

For a lack of a better place to put this topic I will ask the questions here.

First of all, I have a sleep study on Tuesday August 25 at 10 am (I work from 12 midnight to 8:45 am) and the sleep specialist thinks I may have severe apnea. What should I expect out of the study and should I think about buying a used cpap or bipap after the study?

Thanks in advance.

They usually do one whole day/night of watching you sleep and monitoring you.When they wake you up they will tell you their finding. Usually the doctor is there and will come in to talk to you. If not you will get a call at home with the findings. I listened tot he tech and they said everything looked fine, then the doc called adn told me I had Obstructive sleep apnea and obesity hypoventilation syndrom. I then had to go back for another sleep study where they put me on the c-ppap machine and monitored me that way and adjusted the setting until it was right for me.
The process is usually two days like that if you do have it.
I had insurance that covered medical equipment. They will usually rent a new machine for you. Each months rent goes toward the purchase of the machine. If you have wls and don't need it any more than the med supply place takes it back.  I have had mine for 5 years now.I own it now. They are very expensive.. I know 5 years ago mine was over $1300..  I am not sure how much they are now.
I use mine every night. It is very important that you use it if you have OSA. Most obese people die in their sleep and most of the time it is due to sleep apnea, The average age to die with sleep apnea is in the early 40's. It is not something to play with.
Good luck on your tests. It is painless. All you have to do is sleep. It is a little difficult with all the wires hooked up to you but not too bad.. The second night is the one that is hard because it takes a lot of getting used to the machine. But remember just like wls the machine will save your life..

God BLess

I am back from the Sleep Study. The tech made an appointment for me to return on 9-4 to discuss the "findings". One good thing (if you can call it that) is that I didn't meet the criteria for the CPAP to be used 3 hours into the study. Oh well, a little over a wee****ill I find out more.

I will hope for you that the findings are good. They did that to me too the tch didnt see anything so bad, but the doctor reviewed it and it was. SO I had to go back for a second nights tests with the cpap.. Sometimes I think they do that on purpose to make more money. What ever the insurance will pay for. Only last time my insurance didnt pay and I am still trying to pay off that hospital bill still owe over $2000 on it.

I will keep you in my thoughts that you won't have to get a cpap machine. Let me know what you find out.

Were did you have your sleep study done?   I went to Kempton and Nelson in Gilbert. The Tech would not tell me anything.  After the  Doctor  at Kempton and Nelson went over the overall results they called me and set up another sleep study. On the second one I had to sleep with the mask.  Then if  you have sleep apnea they set up an appointment to get your machine.   Good Luck,

Wendy

Being a sleep tech myself I will give you a few pointers.


1. No technician should be telling you any results after your study. Granted it might seem like we don't know anything since we can't tell you, but we do know some things and can't tell you due to it might be wrong from what the doctor sees, the one with the license to diagnose you. So yes, we can't tell you anything due to possible lawsuits that could be drawn. So don't ask for info or beg for it cause we can't tell you and granted no matter how much you beg and plead and say you won't tell your doctor, we still can't, or atleast we shouldn't be.... :)


2. All sleep studies are done with wires(electrodes) that are connected to your head(for the stages of sleep you go into), chest(for your EKG-Heart), Legs(some places I don't know if they do these, but every lab I think should be doing the legs these days, but these are for leg movements, ie: PLMS-Periodic Leg Movement Syndrome and RLS-Restless Leg Syndrome), Oximeter(which is the thing on your finger, it reads Oxygen levels and heartrate), Snorogram(The thing on your neck, it reads off the apmlitude of your snoring on our monitors), the PFLOW(Which should be used now in every lab, but it is the plastic tubing going just into your nose, some of them look like Oxygen tubing, anyhow it catches your nasal flow, thermistor(Just like the pflow, except its a wire/copper thing that catches your thermal(heat) flow coming from your nose and mouth, helping us defer if you are breathing through your mouth or nose).


3. We can do a splitnight study on you, depending on your lab and criteria they follow. Basically we can't ALWAYS split you on the first night due to you maybe not meeting the criteria that the lab itself uses, or the fact that insurance companies won't pay for the study if you don't meet the criteria and we split you(make sense?) So anyhow, not splitting you doesn't necessarily mean you DON'T need a CPAP/BiPAP.


If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask. I don't know every answer and don't take everything I might suggest as a diagnose, always check with your doctor before doing anything. Also keep in mind as I tend to tell everyone, just because you lose weight, does not mean you are completely done having sleep apnea!!!! It's genetic for one, but also skinny people have sleep apnea as well, always always always check with your doctor cause in a few years down the road you have another study done, it might be hard for your insurance to pay for another machine and you'll be paying for it out of pocket...

My husband recently lost his job, and since I had some flex plan money, I purchased a Auto-pap machine at cpap.com.  Their prices are extremely reasonable.  You do need a prescription.  I purchased the newest machine out there with humidifier, an extra mask, extra filters, and a battery pack (in case of camping or power outage) for about $1,300.00.

The DME place was charging about $270.00 a month to rent the machine (a good one, but not the best) and I would have had to rent for 10 months to own the machine.