+- Apnea Board Forum - CPAP | Sleep Apnea (https://www.apneaboard.com/forums)
+-- Forum: Public Area (https://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Forum-Public-Area)
+--- Forum: Main Apnea Board Forum (https://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Forum-Main-Apnea-Board-Forum)
+--- Thread: Bad night, felt suffocated (/Thread-Bad-night-felt-suffocated)
Pages:
1
2
RE: Bad night, felt suffocated - chuck6161 - 07-30-2016
Same again last night. Went to sleep everything was fine, made sure the room was nice and warm and moved the cpap to be lower than my bed level and the p10 was exhaling as normal. However woke at about 3AM thinking I was suffocating again, the tubes had water through them, no exhale from the p10 outlet and noticed that my pillow was a little damp. My machine is an auto and I'm not sure how or is I can turn down the humidifier. It's really frustrating because everything was going well for 4 weeks and this has just happened in the last two nights.
RE: Bad night, felt suffocated - eseedhouse - 07-30-2016
(07-30-2016, 05:35 PM)chuck6161 Wrote: Same again last night. Went to sleep everything was fine, made sure the room was nice and warm and moved the cpap to be lower than my bed level and the p10 was exhaling as normal. However woke at about 3AM thinking I was suffocating again, the tubes had water through them, no exhale from the p10 outlet and noticed that my pillow was a little damp. My machine is an auto and I'm not sure how or is I can turn down the humidifier. It's really frustrating because everything was going well for 4 weeks and this has just happened in the last two nights.
You can change anything you want from the "clinician" settings. Press the Home button and the round button together for about five seconds to get into the clinician menu. You have every right to do this.
Personally I turn the humidity to zero but do put water in the humidifier, a fill lasts two or three days.
RE: Bad night, felt suffocated - chuck6161 - 07-30-2016
Thanks eseedhouse, I actually found that setting in "my options" which is set to 4. I will lower that tonight. I also noticed a setting for pressure relief, it is set to ON. Would you know what that means? Thanks in advance.
RE: Bad night, felt suffocated - green wings - 07-30-2016
If you are talking about expiratory pressure relief, that setting can vary from 0-3 cm, and it's the amount by which the treatment pressure drops when you exhale.
It's a comfort setting to make it easier for you to exhale against the pressure. You can try different values to see what feels good to you. Most people on this forum seem to use some amount of EPR, although some do not and set the value to zero.
This value is called "EPR" for ResMed machines and some version of C-Flex/C-Flex+/A-Flex/Bi-Flex for Philips Respironics machines.
RE: Bad night, felt suffocated - Sleeprider - 07-30-2016
Exhale pressure relief or EPR is the reduction in pressure during exhale. The Autoset has 1, 2 and 3 cmH2O EPR.
A humidity setting of 4 is relatively high. If you don't have a heated hose, it could easily cause condensation. You should request a prescription for heated hose from your doctor so it is covered by insurance, or if you pay out of pocket, consider a fleece hose cover, or just invest in the climateline tubing.
RE: Bad night, felt suffocated - chuck6161 - 07-30-2016
The pressure relief button is just an on or off, there's no numbers against it. My EPR is on with an EPR type of full time and the level is 1.
I do use a slimline tube, I'm assuming that is the heated one. It's definitely not the standard tube and I have slimline selected under accessories.
I'm hoping that by lowering the humidity level to 2 tonight, that should help.
Thanks to everyone that has replied, you are so helpful and I don't think I could have kept soldiering on if it wasn't for this forum. Thanks all.
I'll post tomorrow on how I go tonight.
RE: Bad night, felt suffocated - eseedhouse - 07-30-2016
(07-30-2016, 06:08 PM)chuck6161 Wrote: Thanks eseedhouse, I actually found that setting in "my options" which is set to 4. I will lower that tonight. I also noticed a setting for pressure relief, it is set to ON. Would you know what that means? Thanks in advance.
It just means that the pressure drops a bit when the machine detects that you are breathing out. The settings are 1, 2, and 3 and apply to the pressure drop measured in centimeters of water. So if your pressure at the time you breath out is at 10 it will drop to 9 if your setting is one 8 if it is two, and 7 if it is 3. It will not go below 4cm so if you are at 4cm it will make no difference.
When you start to breath in the pressure will go back up and it may feel like the machine is encouraging you to breath in. You may or may not like that - I do, but you are not me.
Choking feelings seem to be associated with a too low bottom pressure. Many people need at least 7CM to avoid feeling choked, and when the technicians set these machines wide open they are rarely helping you. If you set the pressure relief at 3 and slowly move the bottom pressure up to 7 say a half centimeter at a time over a couple of weeks then you may feel more comfortable. If you don't you can change it.
Also when the machines are run wide open like that they attempt to go back to the lowest pressure between apneas and then they tend not to have enough pressure available to treat the next one, and that can certainly cause you to feel like you are choking because, well, you *are* choking.