CPAP alarm?

February 8, 2009 7:39 AM

Is there any way to set up an alarm that will go off if an electrical device is not in use? I need a non-usage alarm for my CPAP.

I keep forgetting to put on my CPAP mask before I fall asleep, since it's too annoying to fall asleep with if I'm not already very sleepy, and sometimes I fall asleep suddenly. I wake up several hours later feeling dreadful since I have not been breathing enough, and feel bad all through the next day.

Unfortunately, I don't snore at all when suffering apnea, so we can't use that as a natural alarm for my spouse to wake me up. I'd like some sort of quiet alarm that will go off about an hour after a preset bedtime if I am not using the device.

posted by Ery to health & fitness (9 comments total)

Could you use a regular plug timer to have it turn on at a certain time? That assumes it would be loud enough to wake you up if you weren't wearing it.
posted by blackkar at 7:51 AM on February 8

Set a regular alarm for an hour after your bedtime. Turn the alarm off ONLY when you put on your mask. Turn the alarm on in the morning.
posted by sexymofo at 7:55 AM on February 8

Yeah, I think the answer is an alarm clock, not some attachment to your CPAP. Keep It Simple, Stupid and all that.
posted by spicynuts at 8:09 AM on February 8

a variation on blackkar's suggestion -- I don't know enough about CPAP machines, so my apologies if this is irrelevant, but if it is mains-operated, you could unplug it, and in its place plug in a digital time switch (I could only find a British one) set to the relevant time and connected to a noise source such as an untuned radio. Then when you use the mask, unplug the time switch and plug in the CPAP machine. Always use only the one mains socket for the two purposes.

Probably this is more fiddly than just getting in the habit of turning off an alarm every time you put on the mask.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 8:31 AM on February 8

I don't know of any sort of commercial product for this, but the are a number of home build alarm clocks that use the arduino microcontroler platform and a watch crystal.

This would require adding code to support a second alarm that only went off if some sort of detector reported that your CPAP wasn't on. Depending on how it works, the easy way to do that might be to wrap a piece of wire around the CPAP's power cord and use a transistor to amplify the signal from that antenna to something the microcontroler would read as "ON". Or it may require some minor hack of you machine.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:36 AM on February 8

Set a regular alarm for an hour after your bedtime. Turn the alarm off ONLY when you put on your mask. Turn the alarm on in the morning.

Seconding. It's clunky, but you're going to have to manage a timer anyway so the alarm doesn't go off all day.
posted by tkolar at 8:58 AM on February 8

The key phrase in your post was "since it's too annoying to fall asleep with if I'm not already very sleepy."

The way you solve this situation is that when you go to bed, you put your CPAP mask on when you are putting your head on the pillow. You become accustomed to it because you keep doing it, and it eventually becomes nothing. I have a bulky face mask because when I sleep, I breathe through my mouth. I became accustomed to it very quickly because I kept wearing it. (If remembering that is hard, then you leave the hose and mask connected to the machine and you put the mask on your pillow during the day.)

The solution you're asking for is a bad one. You're talking about setting up a mechanism that warns you if you've already slept an hour without your CPAP machine. Were this to be your routine, you'd have routinely spent 12-17% of your sleep in untreated sleep. Long-term untreated apneic sleep can lead to things like congestive heart failure.

The reason you're running into problems, if I understand what you've wrote, is because you've been waiting to put it on until you're just at the edge of sleep, and sometimes you fall over that edge before putting the mask on. You solve that problem by wearing the mask enough times that you become accustomed to it, not by circumventing the process by not exposing yourself to the change until you're nigh-unconscious.
posted by WCityMike at 10:30 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]

Thanks for the suggestions! The plug-in timer is the most appealing solution, and ought to work since the machine does make a lot of noise when the mask is not on my face. I've installed a timer and will be using it tonight. As a bonus, its override switch is a lot easier to reach than the switch on the back of the machine.

After six years of CPAP use, I've found it's impossible to get sleepy if I put the mask on as soon as I get into bed. Definitely the best solution when possible, but not for a light sleeper. Setting the start just a little later than I usually fall asleep ought to do the job.
posted by Ery at 12:33 PM on February 8

Very strongly seconding what WCityMike said. This is a bad solution. You need to get used to wearing your CPAP face mask. It isn't as bad as you have built it up in your mind. I am guessing that most of the people responding to your post (with the exception of WCityMike) are not sleep apnea sufferers, or know little about CPAP machines. I am a severe sleep apnea sufferer, and the CPAP machine has literally turned my life around. My last sleep study recorded a high of almost 80 incidents of stopping breathing in one hour. After using the machine for almost a year, the difference in my life is incredible. I don't think it is exaggerating too much to say that it almost feels like two different lives-- one before CPAP and one after. So if your situation is anything like mine, why are you looking for a situation that is going to prolong your sleep apnea and the web of health problems it causes, while developing a system to make sure you don't use the one machine that can help? I am not your doctor, and your mileage may vary, but figuring out a way to not use your CPAP for any length of time is an invitation to continue your life of chronic fatigue, brain fog and eventually much worse health problems. Please consider the advice of someone who suffers from the same affliction that you do and cares enough to respond at some length. I'm sorry if that isn't the answer you wanted. Please feel free to message me if you have any questions or I can do something else to help.
posted by seasparrow at 7:27 AM on February 9