Sleep apnea (again)

Following my visit to the sleep clinic in Jerusalem, I was, of course, very interested to see how the reduction in pressure would affect the apnea. I took the memory card out of the machine, inserted it into the card reader which I bought shortly after purchasing the CPAP machine ... and nothing. The card was unreadable. I inserted the plug and sd card into one of my mobile computers with the same result.

A few days later, I rebooted my home computer but still was unable to read the card. At this point I began contacting the sleep clinic, pointing out that the card was readable before I visited them (I had prudently backed up all the data on the card before going there) and now it is unreadable. Could it be that the technician changed a setting on the machine which causes data to be stored on the card but not in a format which a computer could read?

This was the situation for a few days until last night, when I had cause to add songs to the micro SD card in my mp3 headphones. This card has to be inserted into a holder card, which is the same size as the CPAP SD card, then inserted into the card reader, then inserted into the computer. The card was unreadable, both on my desk computer and mobile. Determined to find a solution, I then extracted the micro SD card from the holder and inserted it into a little micro SD/USB converter: I was now able to read the data on the card and add songs.

Conclusion: the card reader is broken.

To prove the point, I then took the SD card from the CPAP machine and inserted it into a hitherto unknown socket on my mobile computer from work - yes, it has a direct SD socket. Of course, I could now read the data from the CPAP machine! I shall have to order a new converter.

Oh, and yes, the data from the CPAP machine shows great improvement. There were even a few nights - funnily enough, Friday and Saturday, which have traditionally shown high numbers - in which the number of apneic events was less than ten! This, of course, should happen every night. I will wait another week then reduce the pressure to 4.5, as the technician suggested. It will be very interesting to see the result of this change.