All extremely good advice, but the whole process of getting a CPAP machine drives me bonkers (at least in the US).
A CPAP machine is a couple hundred dollars [1] (certainly less than a thousand) and everyone I've ever spoken to about one has either instantly, the first night of using one had a tremendous dramatic improvement in their sleep or it was sort of 'meh'.
Given the costs and extremely minor risks (we're talking about a small fan that blows air into your mouth) you would think the diagnostic process would be to just give you a CPAP machine and see if it helped.
However you HAVE to go through a sleep study to get one, and you have to get a prescription to even buy one online. All of which means thousands and thousands of dollars of extra health care expense with very little to show for it.
Agree with most everything, but when I bought a CPAP machine many years ago, I don't recall needing a prescription (I could be forgetting). I was deemed "borderline" by my sleep study, so my insurance wouldn't pay for it. I went ahead and bought a portable one online for a couple hundred, and it worked like a charm. Funny thing is the place I bought it from sent me the "nurse's manual" with instructions on setting pressure and "under no circumstances let the patient see this manual" :) I've since lost some weight and had septoplasty (to treat chronic sinus infections) and don't need it, so I donated it to my brother-in-law. If your doctor won't prescribe it, you might need to find a new one. Sleep really is one of those three pillars of health.
I managed to luck out in finding the "full" manual for my device through some googling. Basically you hold down some unrelated buttons and voila, you can adjust pressure yourself. As I've lost weight I've periodically lowered it.
This is a really good criticism of the current system. I know someone who attempted to get a sleep study done but insurance denied it. The doctor's response was basically "oh well, looks like there's nothing we can do".
It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that the first HMO I got treated at used an auto-titrating CPAP initially, just to see if I was a candidate for a sleep study. The machine can sense when you stop breathing, and adjust the pressure accordingly.
It's not always as easy as just strapping on a CPAP and seeing if it works. There are at least two major kinds of sleep apnea: Obstructive (which is the most common) and Central (where your nervous system "forgets" to breathe). Using a CPAP with central sleep apnea can cause serious problems.
There are several different things that can cause poor sleep. So just giving them a machine may miss some important things.
Also, CPAP machines can really screw with your blood chemistry.
I used a CPAP for a three or four years. Overall I had better quality sleep, but there were lots of difficulties and some very long stretches where I think I was much worse off for using the machine.
Depending on the type of sleep apnea a CPAP can make it worse.
Oh, you can sometimes find CPAP machines at swap meets and craigslist, if you look around. I've ended up with three of them, and should probably sell one or two. I know it's still a pain to get a mask, though.
A CPAP machine is a couple hundred dollars [1] (certainly less than a thousand) and everyone I've ever spoken to about one has either instantly, the first night of using one had a tremendous dramatic improvement in their sleep or it was sort of 'meh'.
Given the costs and extremely minor risks (we're talking about a small fan that blows air into your mouth) you would think the diagnostic process would be to just give you a CPAP machine and see if it helped.
However you HAVE to go through a sleep study to get one, and you have to get a prescription to even buy one online. All of which means thousands and thousands of dollars of extra health care expense with very little to show for it.
1 - http://www.cpap.com/customize.php?PNum=2507&PAID=0