WillSucceed, I am SO glad you posted that good explanation by your doctor. Again and again on message boards I see, "It's DANGEROUS to change the pressure yourself...you might cause CENTRAL APNEAS!!"WillSucceed wrote:My Dr. explained pressure-induced central apnea like this: if you are in the car, travelling fast, and stick your head out the window, the force of the air hitting you in the face is enough to cause some O2 overload such that your brain does not send the signal for you to breath as regularly as it would if your head was NOT hanging out the window. The high CPAP pressure is no different than this. Centrals will happen and, he said, are not that big a deal because we will, eventually, take a breath when needed. Unfortunately, these centrals can cause micro-arousals which, are not good because they fracture your sleep. He told me that the patient can get used to the higher pressure and the number of centrals will reduce.
There's something about hearing, "The brain forgets to say 'Breathe now'", that puts fear in people. An undue amount of fear in most cases, imho. I'm not a doctor, but I sure like your doctor's commonsense attitude about the transient nature of occasional central apneas in people whose real disorder is OSA (obstructive sleep apnea) and who might have some centrals show up for awhile when pressure is raised.
What your doctor said adds to the reassurance I've gotten over the past couple of years from reading posts by christinequilts -- a very intelligent lady who does have pure Central Sleep Apnea, a condition that affects only 1% of the apneac population.
christinequilts' posts about central apneas can be found here:
Links to Central Apnea discussions