Yep, Jim, I've been wearing the CPAP mask every night now for the past 8 days.
I spent the night at the Sleep Institute on March 26, hooked up to a bunch of wires and monitored by an infrared camera while I slept (or tried to). So, yep, diagnosed with sleep apnea "in the moderate to severe range". So it was back for another night on April 2, hooked up to all those wires again, plus a nasal mask. I didn't do too well with keeping that mask in place, so the technician came in and tried a full face mask very, very briefly, before going back to the nasal mask. In the morning, the technician said, "You tossed and turned all night." Well, no kidding, Dick Tracy, it didn't take all those wires and camera for me to know that. So the technician sent me home with both of the masks.
On April 21, I went to the Rhema Medical Supply house in Denton and picked up a CPAP machine with heated humidifier, lots of instructions and reading material, and yet another type of nasal mask. This machine has a tiny modem attached that's sending info back to the lady at Rhema. It also has an SD card that's recording some kind of data. She said the doctor will request information from that card and they'll call me and I can take just the card to them, or I can take the machine in and they'll take the card out. And they'll want the modem back in 30 days.
They say I must use the CPAP machine an average of at least 4 hours a night for 21 of the first 30 days, then I have to see the doctor between the 31st and 91st day for an evaluation. Those are requirements for Medicare to pay.
The air pressure is set to 11 of a possible 20, as prescribed by my doctor, she said. But there's a button I can press to immediately drop it to 4 and then it'll gradually come back up to 11 in 20 minutes. That's so, if the pressure is annoying, I can drop it to 4 and then hopefully go to sleep before it gets back up to 11.
So, it's a nuisance; that's the bad news. The good news is that there are many, many different masks and the Philips Respironics TrueBlue nasal mask I got from Rhema is much better than either of the masks I got from the Sleep Institute.
And the best news is that I actually am sleeping much better 7 to 8 hours a night without waking up every few minutes, as I used to do.