Complex Sleep Apnea

This field of sleep disorders and treatment can be overwhelming. It is our goal to provide you with the knowledge and resources to make it simple.

Good ol’ Complex Sleep Apnea. It’s simply…complex!

Complex Sleep Apnea isn’t exactly something that you want, but the nice thing is that it’s easily treated with the proper equipment. The difficult thing is getting to that point because of the cost of the equipment.

Complex Sleep Apnea is when you have both Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Central Sleep Apnea present. Treating Obstructive Sleep Apnea requires increased CPAP pressure where Central Sleep Apnea requires decreased CPAP Pressure, and often Bilevel therapy. See why this was dubbed complex sleep apnea?

In people that have a diagnostic sleep study you can often predict someone who will have complex sleep apnea because they will have several mixed apneas present. What’s a mixed apnea? Don’t ruin my flow. Look it up here: Mixed Sleep Apnea

Many people think that having mixed sleep apnea is the same as saying complex sleep apnea. It’s not. If you clicked on the link above you are a bonafide expert on the subject and so you know this is completely ridiculous.

What to do…..what to do? First thing is to completely exhaust CPAP and Bilevel therapy as therapy options. You do this by using them and failing them. Many people get frustrated during this long period and give up. I don’t blame them. It’s frustrating being on my end of it because you know that the patient is suffering through it. You can blame your insurance for this. They don’t want to fork out money for a very sophisticated machine if you’re going to just give up on it. They want to make sure you’re serious about it and are actually going to use it.

What is this magical mysterious Wizard of Oz like machine? It comes by many names: Auto Servo Ventilation, BiPAP Auto SV, VPAP Adapt, Adaptive Servo Ventilation, BIPAP ASV….etc.

Once you fail CPAP and Bilevel therapy, you’ll need to have your ejection fraction tested. A study came out that if your ejection fraction is less than 50% (in you left ventricle), then using an ASV is SUPER likely to kill you. What kink of treatment is that? If it’s above 50% then you’re all good. Thumbs up buddy!

An ASV works extremely well if the settings aren’t jacked up by some jerk that doesn’t know how to set it up properly. It’s like a Ron Popeil machine….set it and forget it!

Proper settings are IPAP Max 25, EPAP Max 15, EPAP Min 6 (this can change…..but not by much usually), Pressure Support Max 19, Pressure Support Min 4, Rate: Auto. Anything deviating from this by much and it’s likely the person treating you has no F#@k*#! idea what they’re doing.

That’s the gist of Complex Sleep Apnea. Now watch the awesome video below. Any questions and you should REALLY join my forum. Link is below. You should also make yourself feel better by investing in FreeCPAPAdvice.com and FreeCPAPAdvice.com/Forum. Pay it forward? No! Pay it to us so we can keep making great content for a completely ignored and growing population….people with sleep disorders.

 

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