Is there a home test for sleep apnea? Testing in a clinic?

I had mot heard about the Inspire. while i find the CPAP cumbersome, i don’t know that i want to have a device implanted. It sure would be a lot easier though, not to have to travel with a machine. I noticed the last few nights that my hose seems to be whistling. I have my first follow up with the prescriber in April. I think I will ask about the Inspire.

I tried the oral appliance, but it really messed up my jaw. After a lot of money spent on that, I ended up with CPAP and it is annoying but actually working really well and not that bad. I went from 22 “events” per hour down to about “2” (events in this instance means I stopped breathing).

@shonna - thank you for posting this: when a former dentist mentioned this many years ago, seemingly out of an overly-enthusiastic pitch for what seemed like the latest "dental appliance", I posed the concern that that would seem to cause headaches from the forced positioning of the jaw. I'd already been dealing with waking up with headaches from a clenched jaw overnight, and teeth-grinding, so how could this help? She did allow that this could cause headaches.

That was a major reason, as nice as she was, for me to move on to a less "sales-y" dentist.

Since then, I've tried over-the-counter dental trays, and the CPAP apparatus twice in a 10-year period (unsuccessfully), so I currently am not addressing it. Like @walk4life, I'm not keen with the idea of a surgically-implanted device, but haven't known what else to do.

But, like so many times before, exercise is on the list asap, which I've acknowledged so often over the past decade but haven't regularly done. Reading posts on other topics here makes me realize how many folks, even older than I, are actively walking, moving, and is inspiring. But, more on that another time!

Thank you for sharing, and best wishes with this challenge!

Just wondering the difference between a cpap and a bipap. Last night I took off my mask in my sleep 😴 after only an hour and a half. Has anyone done this??

Yes, it's common for people to awaken in the morning and find that they have taken off their mask, but they can't recall doing it. It's obviously a problem. I have no experience with it, and don't have a tip to help you to retain the mask in place.

Practically, there is little difference, if any. Modern machines don't maintain a constant pressure UNLESS....they are set to do that. But they ALL can be set to reduce pressure during exhalation, which most people prefer. It's less effort, less intrusive, helps sleep, and is generally considered to be more comfortable...and comfort is a big deal with PAP therapy.

BiPAP is 'bi-level', or has two pressures to offer. There is often confusion that this machine is helpful for people with mostly central apnea, or with 'complex' apnea where they have an unhealth mixture of both types, obstructive and central. This is almost never the case. Instead, the best, and by far the most effective, treatment is via a costly machine known as an 'adaptive servo-ventilator, or ASV.

The twinned pressure settings is, as is known in the industry, expiration/exhalation pressure relief (EPR). Again, it's a comfort setting because it feels easier to breath out. BUT....there's a problem....potentially. The whole idea behind CPAP is to 'splint your airway' to keep it open so that your diaphragm does its job of keeping you....umm...inflated now and then. The pressure prescribed is meant to help you to breathe in, but also to keep your airway sufficiently open, or splinted, to allow you to breathe out fully relaxed...normally, in other words. So, the EPR setting cannot be so low as to not allow you to exhale. It's a bad as not being able to inhale since the whole point of the twinned process is for you to exchange gases.