Living at 5500 feet versus sea level

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
pbriggs
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Re: Living at 5500 feet versus sea level

Post by pbriggs » Tue Sep 30, 2014 7:22 pm

sierragail your post is most interesting.

I am actually going in the opposite direction in October. Today I live at 846 feet above sea level in Michigan and moving to 4027 feet above sea level in Texas. I travel there frequently today and as I compare the data I find:

Pulse in BPM is the same in both locations
SpO2 level is lower in Texas by 1.7% compared to Michigan.

I typically travel for a week at at time, or 4 nights in Texas. It will be interesting to compare over time after I move. I assume that this would also work in reverse as others have stated. If you move to a lower elevation you will have a higher O2 concentration in the air that you are breathing, so I would expect that your SpO2 level would also increase. I wonder further if you would simply adjust to the new level and eventually need O2 again, but I suspect not.


Supporting statistics:

Two-Sample T-Test and CI: SpO2-Med-TX, SpO2-Med-MI

Two-sample T for SpO2-Med-TX vs SpO2-Med-MI
N Mean StDev SE Mean
SpO2-Med-TX 17 91.235 0.664 0.16
SpO2-Med-MI 89 92.938 0.542 0.057

Difference = mu (SpO2-Med-TX) - mu (SpO2-Med-MI)
Estimate for difference: -1.703
95% CI for difference: (-2.059, -1.346)
T-Test of difference = 0 (vs not =): T-Value = -9.95 P-Value = 0.000 DF = 20

Conclusion, P=0.000 therefore we reject that the two are the same.

for BPM
Two-sample T for P-Med-TX vs P-Med-MI
N Mean StDev SE Mean
P-Med-TX 17 70.59 2.96 0.72
P-Med-MI 89 70.56 3.63 0.38

Difference = mu (P-Med-TX) - mu (P-Med-MI)
Estimate for difference: 0.026
95% CI for difference: (-1.648, 1.700)
T-Test of difference = 0 (vs not =): T-Value = 0.03 P-Value = 0.974 DF = 26

Conclusion, P=0.9740 therefore we accept that the two are the same. (actually we says that we can not say that they are different)

Pulse BPM are the same in MI and in TX, however the SpO2 level in TX is lower than in MI by 1.7

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RicaLynn
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Re: Living at 5500 feet versus sea level

Post by RicaLynn » Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:13 pm

grayjoanne1966 wrote:I am a newbie on CPAP and night oxygen due to sleep apnea. I live at 5500 feet elevation. Would it be to my benefit to move to sea level. Has anyone out there actually made the move and if so, tell me about your CPAP and oxygen deprivation experiences. etc. Were you able to get off of supplemental oxygen? Were you able to discontinue your CPAP therapy?
Personal experience: my father has COPD and severe sleep apnea. From 1998-2011 he lived in his native Maryland (Delmarva peninsula), just a couple hundred feet above sea level. While the heavy, oxygen-rich air reduced the need for supplemental O2 the humidity in the air was slowly killing him, and it did nothing to alter the severity of his apnea.

Dad moved back to Montana in May 2011, at 3700 ft. The first couple months were tricky as his body adjusted to the drier, thinner air, but his overall health improved to the point he no longer needed supplemental O2 DURING THE DAY. He still has severe OSA and requires supplemental O2 from a concentrator in addition to his CPAP machine at night, and this will be the case for the remainder of his life as the COPD progresses.

Changing your location will likely have little effect on your sleep apnea, except perhaps to alter the optimal pressure necessary to prevent desat. It may affect your need for supplemental O2 therapy, but not necessarily in the way you expect.

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sierragail
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Re: Living at 5500 feet versus sea level

Post by sierragail » Wed Oct 01, 2014 8:02 pm

Pbriggs,
We've been living at 3000 ft since last March (7 months). So far I've not needed supplemental O2 as my O2 sats are always very good. My average cpap pressure has decreased to between 6 and 7 and my AHIs are 3 or less. For someone with chronic mountain sickness, the doctors said I should not live any higher than 4000 ft. The available O2 at heights above 4000 ft decreases exponentially and I can't ever adapt no matter how long I would live there. I can see how your O2 sats are less at 4027 ft than down at 846 ft. At 4000 ft there's 87% of the oxygen available at sea level. It's rough to travel back and forth between what is virtually sea level (846 ft) and altitude because any adaptation your body has achieved at altitude is immediately lost upon return to sea level. When you have completed your move and are no longer ping-ponging back and forth, your body will hopefully adapt and your O2 sats should return to normal.

Ricalynn,
I'm sorry about your dad having COPD. And after moving to altitude, your dad no longer needs supplemental O2 during the day, wow, what really good news. I never realized how taxing the humidity can be for someone with pulmonary health issues, but it makes sense. I lived in Louisiana for 33 years, and the humidity is suffocating enough for people without COPD.

For me, moving to lower altitude has meant a significant decrease in average apneas per hour, as well as a decrease in average cpap pressure, and I no longer need supplemental O2 at night, but I don't have COPD. I guess it goes to show that works for one person doesn't necessarily work for the next person. We're all different.

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pbriggs
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Re: Living at 5500 feet versus sea level

Post by pbriggs » Wed Oct 01, 2014 8:09 pm

sierragail interesting the effect it has had - did the humidity also change a lot from your two locations? I will be going from high humidity MI to very low humidity El Paso TX. Never gave the humidity much thought.

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chunkyfrog
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Re: Living at 5500 feet versus sea level

Post by chunkyfrog » Thu Oct 02, 2014 12:16 pm

I see where there is a genetic link, they have even identified the genes responsible.

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sierragail
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Re: Living at 5500 feet versus sea level

Post by sierragail » Thu Oct 02, 2014 9:45 pm

Pbriggs, we moved from 8000 ft in the Western Sierra Madre Mountains in Michoacan (Mexico) down to a small town in Colima at 3000 feet. We're about 20 kilometers south of El Fuego, the most active volcano in Mexico. Both locations have intense rainy seasons for several months (and then a drier-than-a-bone dry season) and humidity is 95% to 99% in both places during the rainy months. But it's the dew point that makes the big difference. Dew point goes down as altitude increases so even though it's extremely humid at 8000 ft during the rainy months, the dew point is a lot lower so it doesn't feel muggy like it does down here at 3000 feet.

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