Posted by elenamhs on March 18, 2002 at 14:39:47:

Hi,
I got my rented Devilbis Autoadjust LT Feb 12 with Mirage mask, and now have bought my own off the net for $689 . I tried my brother's straight CPAP and was impressed how much more comfortable the
Auto Adust LT was, as it is easier to exhale, as the flow seems to decrease during exhaling. Originally the rental machine was set for self-titrating set 4-20 which gave me many problems ramping up intolerably in the night due I think to mask leaks. The machine never-the-less gave me the useful parameters : 8-12 so now my new machine is set to that range with incredible inprovement. This info was garnered from the cumulative pressure graph , where according to the respiratory therapist, the step-ups on the graph indicate benefit gained by the rise in CPAP pressure. As the steps got between 10-12 (my set range for a straight CPAP) there was less and less improvement, until by +12 there was no improvement with increased pressure.

After reading many posts, I decided to get the Breeze nasal delivery system headgear and have gotten good at adjusting it, thanks to the many helpful posts. I got both medium and large pillows (my schnoz is a big one, but I found that the medium size is more comfortable but requires careful headgear adjustment. Also after reading the posts about humidifiers I ordered one but because of a mailing glitch it took a month to arrive. It is the Humidaire which I got for the bargain of $239. So this meant I had to endure over a month without humidification. I thought it might not matter as I live in Portland, OR and it is almost always rainy at this time of year, but I suffered from stinging, cold sinuses, bloody or pinkish disharges and much stuffiness. When my Humidaire arrived, WOW what a help. I have it set very low, at 1 1/2 which works great. In response to posts, I made hose insulators with quilted bathrobe fabric. So I have not had any condensation/ water squirting in my nose.

One great side effect of the humidifier is that the noise from the Autoadjust LT is DECREASED. I used to be bothered by the constant whine, a change in pitch as I breathed in and out. "Wah--Woo-Wah--Woo" all night long, which came through the hose and was much louder for me than for my husband. I wanted to mention this about the AutoAdjust LT as I had not seen it posted elsewhere, though I may have missed it. Now with the humidaire that irritatiing noise is gone and I can only hear what my husband hears, a very quiet intermittent hum. I plan to move the CPAP off the bedside table to the floor to even lessen this. BOY has my sleep improved!!! [ I wonder if this decrease in noise goes both ways, interfering with the snoring cues given to the CPAP but I have not had ANY trouble--the machine has performed impeccably.]

The change to the Breeze has been great, but sometimes I use the Mirage face mask just to give my nostrils a break --I got a little sore in one from blowing my nose and trying out the large nasal pillows. I would suggest that every one have an alternative to the nasal pillows so that if this happens they will be able to heal more quickly. I have noticed that my face and eyelids seem to puff up more when I use the face mask--which leaves imprints on my cheeks and nasal ridge. This goes away after about an hour after rising. Still, many mornings I wake up not aware of the mask or nasal prongs at all and wonder if the machine is on at all.

One thing I wanted to let people know about is my struggle trying to get the AutoAdjust LT software to work with my Mac with our new OS X (10) operating system with Virtual Windows 5,.0 installed. First it was a challenge learning Windows. You must get Virtual Windows for OS X . After much struggle trying to get the report to print it turned out that our I Dock connection for extra ports was configured only for OS 9 or below and as it was a cheap foreign model, the company was defunct and there is no OS X configuration update. Therefore we had to run the CPAP program in OS 9 where we still could use the dock [or buy a new dock with the proper configuration].Thank heavens that I have a computer literate son who helped me set all this up. Even so it took days to find the time to set it up. Even now however, we still have not figured out how to get the printer to print ANYTHING from Virtual Windows so until we find the misconfiguration, bug or conflict I must just see the report on the printer screen. Call me old fashioned but I would like to have a copy in hand to help me study the results. Anyway so much for computer problems and successes.

Thanks to all the information on this forum, I am well on my way to being one happy snoozer. I can't imagine what it would have been like trying to do all of this choosing and adjusting without all of your input and support. I hope some of the info in this post will help someone else!

Thanks a million!

Elena

Follow Ups:

• Re: Update on my Mac computer experience, humidifier OzChrisR 20:57 3/18/02 (0)
• Mac Computers and AutoCPAP Software Perry 18:18 3/18/02 (0)

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