Aerophagia

[Palmtrees]

Aerophagia -- air swallowing.   What is the best thing that seems to help with this?  Dang nuisance!
Will getting an upgrade from the brick help?
Working on that.  In the meantime...anything I can do?

[Sleeprider]

Have you implemented EPR? (exhale pressure relief)

[ardenum]

anti gas pills

[Palmtrees]

yes, have the EPR on at 3.

[mesenteria]

Avoid back-sleeping like your life depends on it.

[Palmtrees]

Avoid back-sleeping like your life depends on it.

uh-huh!   Yes, I notice that my "events per hour average" goes up when I sleep on my back.
thank you

[Sleepster]

Aerophagia tends to subside as we adapt to the CPAP therapy. For most people.

One way to fight it is to experiment with different neck positions. Many people find that a soft cervical collar (loosely fit) helps keep their neck aligned so that most of the air goes into the lungs instead of the stomach.

The other way to fight it is by lowering the pressure. That is why people are recommending that you turn on EPR, it lowers the pressure when you exhale. You can also lower the pressure, but that tends to increase the number of apneas, so you have to perform a balancing act where you sacrifice some of the efficacy of your therapy to relieve the symptoms of aerophagia.

It's really important to use good software, like the free OSCAR, to monitor things.

[Palmtrees]

thank you, Sleepster.  Unfortunately, I am stuck (at least for now) with a "brick."   Getting an appointment with the doc to see if I can get switched to a model that cooperates with OSCAR.   I did download OSCAR and was told, "sorry, you have a brick."   Good thing I have a sense of humor!
thanks for the tips.  Going to get a cervical collar and see if that helps.  I guess a bit more gear on me won't hurt any.

[Sleepster]

I did download OSCAR and was told, "sorry, you have a brick."   Good thing I have a sense of humor!
thanks for the tips.  Going to get a cervical collar and see if that helps.  I guess a bit more gear on me won't hurt any.

Well, if the collar and the EPR don't do it you can experiment with lowering your pressure from 7 to something like 6.5 to see if it decreases your symptoms. That's kind of what I did (except I had a BiPAP so I was also adjusting the EPAP) and it helped until I could adapt.

What really helped me was getting an auto-adjusting bilevel machine (see my profile for an example). My CPAP pressure was originally 13, which I do need, but very rarely. I have the upper limit set at 13.6, but it rarely goes above 12. This is the real advantage of any auto-adjusting machine, it lets you spend more time at lower pressures.

Up until a year or two ago I got the occasional bout of flatulence, but I adapted quite well. It just took me a longer time than most folks.