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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

Completely agree. And the worst part is sleep studies are medically unnecessary - an APAP machine (automatic machine) can auto-set the necessary pressure, and no sleep study is needed.

Simply sleep with an APAP for a week, review the pressure graph and draw a line at the bottom of the values. Then set the minimum pressure to that number, or slightly less and done.

Review every few months.

If you ask a Dr. about this they'll talk about the 1% of less cases that will not be correctly adjusted by such a machine. But all you need to do is ask the patient after a week "do you feel better?". If they say no you can go for the more complicated options.

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Hahahahah. Oh man.

The vast majority of patients take months or longer to get acclimated to the machine. Most will say they feel /worse/, because the machine gets in the way of their sleep at first.

I look forward to hearing more medical pearls from the web design community.

Apparently I'm an outlier then, I got used to it in under a week, and swear by it. If my wife and I stay up late and get short hours on machine, or nap in the living room instead of upstairs and on machine, I know it the next day.

5, 6 hours in a base minimum for me to not feel sluggish and possibly even start the day with a headache.

I think the autotitration helps acclimation...and for me, I was so anxious for relief, I was acclimated before I even got the machine.

I'll chime in with the sibling comment. I felt immediately better after getting an APAP, within the first few days of using it. And my doctor didn't set specific pressure point but rather a range which we've never adjusted. And from memory that conversation was "I'm going to put it within these broad bounds and let it find the right place during the night. If it's not working for you come back in and we'll figure it out."

I bought a CPAP off an Amazon seller here in Canada a few years back. I have a large neck and would wake up gasping for air in the night. It was going to be several months to get the sleep study so one day I impulse bought it. First night I slept 8 hours, couldn't remember the last time I did that. Best $600 I ever spent.

The vast majority of patients take months or longer to get acclimated to the machine

Sounds like your experience is with much older machines. Is that reasonable to say?

No. Last time I worked shifts in a pulm/sleep medicine clinic was about 18 months ago.

Or how about from people who have actually used them? I put getting a study for years because the whole thing seems such a massive scam. Shame on me: I really needed a bipap, and now I feel so much better. But I could have figured this out by trying one for a week, as others have suggested. It blows air into my nose, for heaven’s sake. How many years of med school does it take to learn about that?

Also: wore it 8 hours the first night, and every night since. Not that hard to get used to.

You know CPAP has 50% compliance right? A huge amount of patients never get used to it. And even of those that stick to it, they struggle through the night with it. They define successful CPAP treatment as 4 hours or more a night, when 4 hours is obviously insufficient.

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