Originally Posted by
Cruiser51
Hi Bill, check the weight/size saving between the mini and the Dreamstaion. I have the previous Respironics Pro unit and have a Dreamstation I haven't used yet, but I just take the home unit in, I didn't really see that much advantage to a separate unit for camping. Now I am assuming you will be going back country, which means making best use of the power you take.
The advantage of the Respironics units you mention is that they are 12 volt, which gives you a broader range of batteries to chose from. Those units separate, so I only take the CPAP portion, humidity control is a no-go for power use, like wise any sort of power inverter to go to 120 VAC. Make sure your unit can run from a car source and get the 12 volt cable that (in this case) Respironics makes, I believe it has some electronics in it to stabilize the voltage and such, plus it is staying "inbounds" of the warranty to be using their cable, with your battery.
With a prescription of 6 cm of water, I will use about 2 Amp hours a night (7-8 hours), with the 20 amp hour battery I bought (4.5 lbs) I get about 10 nights sleep on a charge, in reality it is closer to 14, but it will vary with how much you sleep. The important point here is to get some value for your nightly usage and using 6 as a starter and calculating a proportionate value gives you a decent starting point. For example, that starting point for a 10 pressure would need something like (10/6) x 2 = 3.3 ... which means that same 20 AH battery will now yield about 6 nights.
Like anything medical, I feel you should get involved and understand the process and recommendations you are being asked to follow. In the case of the actual CPAP data, you are typically told to upload the sleep data using the Dream Mapper software ... there are alternatives to this software, notably Oscar, which is Freeware and readily available, plus you don't have to give your data away via the "terms of Use". Most users never bother with this side of the CPAP story, but there is a wealth of data that is easily understood and will help you immensely to understand your patterns and the effectiveness of the treatment.
I just went through the sleep study cycle and the recommended pressure that the study gave was a 25% increase ... now I have 5 years of data showing that the original pressure was fine and in fact I could go somewhat lower, having that data and an understanding of the how to look at the data meant that the specialist agreed that the current pressure was fine. The study most clinics give, is usually an abbreviated version of the actual recommended procedure and it gets you to a pressure that will work, not necessarily the optimum pressure, in general using a lower pressure is far more comfortable and in this case buys me more nights. Just to be clear, I am not saying to use a pressure lower than prescribed, but rather making sure the prescribed pressure reflects your needs. As the pressure is increased, it will hit a point where it starts to work, then works better ... you can continue increasing the pressure (for a ways only) and it still works, the trick is getting it to be enough, but not over much. I think the study value is padded a bit to make sure it will always work, but just remember, you have a lot of empirical data available to you via your machine that the study folks don't have, learn to use that data to your benefit.
This has turned into a somewhat "rambly" post, but I have been using my CPAP wilderness camping now for close to 10 years and if you just follow a few simple ideas, it is very doable and waking up well rested, just makes a camping day so much better, hell, it makes life better.
Brian
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