Welcome!

Welcome to the Apnea Support Forum provided to you by the American Sleep Apnea Association (ASAA).  We hope your visits to our discussion forum and chatroom are informative and enjoyable, for this site is all about helping each other with sleep apnea and to help people learn more about it.  

Please note that as a Guest, you may view any of the forums here.  To post you will need to register as a member.  It's easy and it's free.  As a member, you can use the Private Message (PM) feature, and you will be notified by Email of topic replies and PMs.  We welcome all Guests and Members.

The ASAA is a nonprofit organization providing you a noncommercial alternative to discussion and information towards understanding and coping with this condition.  Below are our guidelines and policies along with helpful information about posting comments and questions to our forum.  Our guidelines reflect our noncommercial status, our commitment to promoting proper medical care for sufferers with sleep apnea, and our need to inform the public about this condition.  We operate our forum to be a welcoming, comfortable experience.  We thank you for your assistance in making it possible to help as many people as possible.

NOTE:  We do not allow links in your first post, or guests to link at all.  This is done to reduce the spam posting.  We apologize for the inconvenience, but we found that most spam contains links, and most of the drive-by spam is done on the first post.

Commercial Links and Solicitation:
No commercial links are to be posted on the forum.  The American Sleep Apnea Association does not promote or endorse a particular brand, manufacturer, or vendor of sleep apnea products.  Posts that contain commercial links will be moderated. (A commercial link is defined as a link to a for profit website that has a storefront)   This does not mean that you can not mention brand names, or experiences you have had purchasing or using equipment.

Note that posted language that represents commercial links is also not permitted.  Posts which direct people to commercial websites (i.e. use of "dot com" or other similar wording) will be moderated.  

The solicitation of sleep apnea products and treatment services is not permitted.   The ASAA reserves the right to remove and restrict comments which are clearly efforts to solicit the sale of sleep apnea products or services by those with a commercial interest.  Again, this does not mean you cannot mention brands or experiences with products.  Also, links to websites which require or solicit email addresses will be moderated.


Websites or Blogs operated by Patients or Medical Professionals:
Links to websites or blogs operated by patients or individual medical professionals will not be permitted.  Also, excessive promotion of these types of websites will not be permitted.  The ASAA provides this forum website as a source of open discussion.  This forum does not monitor, endorse or promote individual expressions of related issues provided on other private websites.  Therefore, posts which provide links to or promotes these types of websites will be moderated.


Posts about CPAP adjustments and self-treatment:
Although the ASAA advocates being proactive in ones treatment, we can not advocate or encourage making pressure adjustments or other CPAP clinical adjustments without consulting with your physician.  Please do not post instructions or how to guides for making adjustments or entering clinician menus to make adjustments.  We thank you for your understanding.  Do not post links to clinician menus or similar menus not authorized for access by manufacturers; these sorts of posts will be moderated.

The ASAA advocates being proactive in ones treatment by coordinating patient medical treatment with qualified and knowlegable healthcare professionals.  Being proactive in ones treatment is not the same thing as self-treating or self-medicating ones medical condition.  Self-treatment/medication is defined as treatment without medical care.  People owe it to their health and well-being to coordinate their medical care with healthcare professionals familiar with their medical history.  We do not want readers of this forum to be convinced, from comments advocating self-treatment, to ignore or forego medical consultation and treatment.  Self-treatment/medication is a private, individual choice.  Forum discussion promoting self-treatment and self-medication may be moderated.   Your cooperation with this is greatly appreciated.
 

Trades, gifts or sales of cpap equipment on the forum:
Posts regarding the trade, gift, or sale of cpap equipment are not permitted on this forum.  This includes machines, humidifiers, masks or parts for these -- please do not post about trading, donating or selling equipment.  Posts such as these will be moderated.  While we understand the need to help each other out, we have several reasons for not allowing this sort of posting in our forum.  If you have any concerns about this issue or any issue posted in these guidelines, feel free to contact a Moderator.


Conduct in the forum and chatroom:
We encourage lively discussion and debate, however discussions should be limited to conversation which will not be offensive to users of our forum and chatroom.  The forum and the chatroom are run to provide a non-threatening or offensive environment for people needing to discuss their problems and concerns about this condition.  Refrain from making comments which can offend and drive visitors away.  Messages and materials that are defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive to or about groups of people or individuals are not permitted. The forum administration reserves the right to moderate discussions and prohibit persons from continuing offensive discussions or discussions which are against ASAA policies and guidelines.  

We recognize the need of people suffering from this condition to chat with others who share their experience.  But keep in mind, the purpose of the chatroom is to assist people who have questions and concerns about sleep apnea.  Off-topic discussion is permitted, but participants are asked to make it a priority to help new visitors to the chatroom.  We ask for your assistance in welcoming new visitors and encouraging them to ask questions.


Solicitations for surveys or questionaires:
Persons soliciting questions and input from our forum members and users for surveys or questionaires for research or other purposes should contact the ASAA for permission to post those requests.  Permission for soliciting input from our forum users should be directed to the Contact page of the ASAA website www.sleepapnea.org.  Our forum is here for the purpose of providing support and information for patients and educating the public about this condition.  To make this a comfortable place for visitors to ask questions and comment on their condition, the ASAA reserves the right to moderate posts which solicit input from our visitors.  For more information about this, contact the ASAA.


The role of the Moderators:
Moderators on this forum are volunteers and are here to help patients and to see that this forum runs smoothly and is an inviting place for people to come and seek advice and discuss issues.  If you have any specific concerns about this forum, you may contact Moderators or Administration through the use of Personal Messages.  Most of the moderators are patients and not medical professionals.  This site is created as a discussion forum for patients to communicate their issues among themselves within our guidelines.  The information provided on this site is not intended as a substitue for professional medical advice.  You should not use this information on this web site or the information on links from this site to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease without consulting with a qualified healthcare provider.














Read this if you are posting your symptoms:

Many of us want to help.  
If you are posting your symptoms,
it might help if you can provide more information about your condition and the health care you've gotten so far.


You might consider responding to the following questions:

Have you had a sleep study at a sleep study clinic?
If you had a sleep study at a lab, how many nights?  Did the study include titration (tested with cpap)?
Have you seen the study report and its results yet, and what are they?

Did you instead have a home test, what kind of test? Pulse oximetry? SleepStrip? Other screeners? Home lab tests are different. What test was done?

Are you currently using a cpap and how is it working for you?
If you are using a cpap, what kind and brand; and same for mask?
Are you using a heated humidifier with your cpap?


Perhaps these might help.  The more we know and the sooner we know, the better we can help.


Please Note:

Although the ASAA advocates being proactive in ones treatment, we can not advocate or encourage making pressure adjustments without consulting with your physician.  Please do not post instructions or how to guides for making adjustments or entering menus to make adjustments.  We thank you for your understanding.

No commercial links are to be posted on the forum.  The American Sleep Apnea Association does not promote or endorse a particular brand, manufacturer, or vendor of Sleep Apnea Products.

Posts that contain commercial links will be moderated.
(A commercial link is defined as a link to a for profit website that has a storefront)

This does not mean that you can not mention brand names, or experiences you have had purchasing or using equipment.  


Why we do this:

The American Sleep Apnea Association is a 501(c)(3).  (A non-profit organization)  To maintain our status as a 501(c)(3) we can not actively promote a for profit website (storefront) without potentially jeopardizing our status.


FAQ:

Q: Can I post a link to a mask or machine?
A: Yes, but link directly to the manufacturer, not a storefront that sells the item.  

Q: Can I link to another forum, or post?
A:  Yes, but any linking that appears to be skirting the linking to for-profit sites rule will be moderated.

Q: I have just heard about this great new product, but it is only on a site that sells it, can I still post it?
A: Unfortunately no.  First off, if it is a great new answer to Sleep Apnea, it is not going to be on just one site, secondly, it still is a for profit website (storefront) and is not allowed.  

Q: Can I post about a product and ask people to private message me for the link?
A:  Maybe, please send a message to sleepapnea_ed before doing so.  We want to keep out the advertising, without affecting educational information related to Sleep Apnea.

Q: Can I tell people how to find information from a search engine?
A:  Yes.  We are only trying to limit the links to commercial (storefront) websites.  

Q: I was told that I should stop linking to forum x or y, but I followed all the rules above, why?
A: If it appears that the majority of posts are intended not to inform but to direct forum members to a commercially sponsored forum, the posts will be interpreted as advertisement for the commercial site and will be moderated.


Additionally, any posts that are intended to be antagonistic or disruptive to the forum may be moderated or removed.  We ask that you treat others the way you wish to be treated.