Problems exhaling and scared

[Jazzmynn]

I have been on CPAP therapy for years.
A couple of times, I’ve woken up in the morning feeling like I can’t exhale, but I can inhale and it feels like I’m having trouble breathing.
It’s so scary!
I went to a sleep dr and he adjusted the settings on my machine.
He said if it continues, I’ll have to have another sleep study to see if I need a BiPAP machine.
I’m wondering if the nasal mask is putting too much concentrated air in and if a full face mask would make a difference.
Anybody else experience this?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[SarcasticDave94]

Welcome to the Apnea Board.

If you would download the free OSCAR program so we can view a Daily chart, it would help us see how your PAP machine is working. Info as would be contained in these charts can tell us if you're getting apnea events still and suggestions from this data on pressure adjustments can make this experience better for you. All for free. And yes OSCAR is safe.

As for mask types, unless you are a natural mouth breather, a pillows or nasal mask can be better for comfort. They may feel more direct on the air blowing out and it's known some cannot get used to it right away. There are the full faced masks, but it's best to reserve those for the mouth breather unless you just cannot use the nasal or pillows. These first two are easier to deal with being smaller formats, and they leak less than a full face mask in most cases.

Hope you can get OSCAR going and we can help further. At the very least, give us the machine settings and the display readout. It'll help some, but it's a poor substitute compared to all the info from OSCAR.

[ardenum]

Alot of people experience this, when using EPR is not enough you can only switch to a bipap.

[jaswilliams]

What are the pressure setting of your machine and do you have EPR enabled, a few graphs from OSCAR will help see my signature on how to download and post charts

[Jazzmynn]

My settings are 4-15
I wonder what my dr did to my machine to make things better

[SarcasticDave94]

OK something to consider. Here at Apnea Board we see that the Respironics machines need to have the low side pressure brought up close to the 95% or at least at the median pressure as an absolute minimum. Respironics machines are infamously slow at responding to events. I'm going to say that 4 as a minimum pressure is really too low. I would suggest getting the clinical manual under the CPAP Setup Manuals area for your exact PAP machine. It gives a good bit of info on the settings and what these settings control. To access this area, you'll hold Ramp and the Dial in for about 5 seconds. It will take you to the settings area for adjusting these.

Without OSCAR data, it's difficult to know what exact settings would be good. I do know that 4 is commonly too low for any adult using a PAP. I think this too low of pressure is contributing to discomfort. If you're like quite a few that post, you may think you need less pressure, and my suggestion to increase it sounds wrong. I do think the trouble breathing mentioned is linked to a too low of air pressure. If you are using Flex, you're probably going to need to reset the 4 to somewhere at least between 6-8. I know I'm harping on data, but if we'd see the chart, it would help pinpoint the target pressures. As is it's a guess on my part.

[jaswilliams]

I suggest setting the minimum pressure to 6 that way you can get the full benefit of flex make sure it’s set to 2

[Gideon]

My settings are 4-15
I wonder what my dr did to my machine to make things better

Your min pressure is 4?  I understand at least part of the problem,  Your Min pressure should be a min of 6, maybe higher, but we need to see your charts to determine that.