I was recently prescribed a CPAP for sleep apnea. I ended up with CPAP machine called the Luna by 3B. As many machines do, it records data to an SD card.
The idea is useful: the CPAP machine can display a QR code on-screen which you can scan with a mobile app. Neat!
The app has terrible ratings, and they are deserved. It shows only very basic information; a nightly average. More baffling, although there's an "Upload" tab, there is no apparent way to actually upload the results anywhere.
Frustrated by the only-marginally-useful mobile app, and the fact that none of their software could read the data on the SD card, my doctor found some information and gave me a printout steering me to iCodeConnect (also stylized as ICODECONNECT which is how I have started referring to it, because it's impossible to discuss without screaming about it).
The instructions suggest to click "Quick Report" on the main page. Doing so brings up a page asking for a ton of information, and noting, in bold:
It is strongly recommended that you sign up for a provider account on iCodeConnect so that all of your data will be preserved and accessible from anywhere.
Signing up for a provider account required me to designate a HIPAA compliance officer (I nominated myself). This got my account rejected, with a note that patients are not allowed to register accounts.
On the "Quick report generator," it appears that basically all of the information you input is just displayed back to you. There is no apparent purpose to filling in any of your information, much less your provider or physician information, except that it will display on the next page.
And then there's this box at the bottom:
You would think you would select iCode, but this results in a comically bad experience. You are expected to type in the strings that appear on the CPAP's screen.
What you actually want to do: turn off the CPAP machine, remove the SD card ("chip"), insert it into your computer (if you have an adapter), and then press "SD card" instead of the default "iCode". This will allow you to select a file with a .USR extension on the SD card.
(Aside: the .USR file on the SD card is only 1MB for me; maybe it will expand with usage, but I suspect it's actually a circular log and will always be 1MB. In that case, a tech-savvy patient could email the .USR file to their doctor directly, rather than dealing with the SD card itself.)
You'll probably want to change the "Select date range" bit to "Select all days with data" or something useful like that, because the default appears to only be the current day.
At the bottom of that page, it displays a helpful daily chart of how your sleep went. This is what I was after, and it seems this data is only accessible from the SD card.
Now this is useful! It shows I started around midnight, at the starting 5 cmH₂O, climbing slowly over the night and peaking around 8. But more interesting:
- Several times, especially around 2-3am, I had several apnea events.
- Around 6am (and a bit earlier), the mask leaked a lot. I probably rolled over and had it come off in my sleep.
Note that the bars for apnea (red) and hypopnea (orange) are not too easily distinguished. Also, because I had to look it up:
- Apnea is loosely defined as when you stop breathing; we probably know this since we've been diagnosed with sleep apnea. The textbook definition is apparently that your airflow is reduced at least 90% for 10 seconds or more.
- Hypopnea is a lesser version: your airflow is reduced at least 30%, but less than 90%, or it would be apnea. WebMD refers to it as "shallow breaths." Like apnea, it must last at least 10 seconds.
(I presume the 10-second limit is less that a 9.9-second cessation of breathing doesn't matter, and more that your respiration rate while sleeping is pretty low, so going a few seconds without breathing is normal.)
There's a Windows software app for these called RESmart, which seems to cover machines made by both BMC and B3. It's available through ApneaBoard.com; not sure if it's available from a more official source or not. It is similarly clunky to use, but something it shows that the iCode Connect site doesn't is a breathing/airflow chart. It makes individual apneic episodes a lot more visible.