Struggling w/Aerophagia

Hi -

Aerophagia has kept me from using my cpap at 17 pressure, which was determined at my last sleep study. So, I'm at 16, usually can only get about 4 hours in a night, and it's helpful but not optimal use of cpap therapy. Aerophagia is now a nightly issue and I'm not sure why. I try to sleep on my side, with mouth closed, chin straps don't work for me. I have gained about 5 lbs. this year. Could that be it? I'm so, so tired of waking up with a stomach full of air. It is extremely painful. Can't be good for my insides either. Any new thoughts on this? The doctors and the respiratory therapists don't seem to know what to do when you bring up aerophagia.

Pugsy - Thoughts at this point? Have looked at previous posts on this and didn't see anything I haven't already tried.

I can't think of anything we haven't discussed before.
All your options kinda suck.

If you lower your pressure your OSA isn't well treated.
If you use the pressures needed to take care of the OSA and the settings needed to breathe for you when you have your centrals...the aerophagia monster rears its ugly head.

The only thing you haven't tried is what we talked about a while back...the ASV machine instead of what you are using now for your complex sleep apnea.
I don't know if having a machine that would auto adjust and maybe keep you at lower pressures for enough of the night that the aerophagia monster won't rear its ugly head.
Your pressures are fixed now with a back up rate for when you have centrals.
ASV would auto adjust and perhaps enough of the night you could get by with lower pressures instead of using higher pressures all night like you are doing now. It's a maybe.
But you didn't/couldn't go with ASV for various reasons.

I can pursue that. Cost is a factor as I have a high deductible, still owe $2,000 on a sleep study I had over a year ago. Also cannot imagine bringing the stress and worry from having BC/BS watching me so closely for compliance. That was a nightmare last year.

lwieland11 wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 22, 2018 7:06 am

Struggling w/Aerophagia

Have you read the wiki? wiki/index.php/Aerophagia