Back pressure from CPAP woke me up

I had something new happen last night.

I had moved from medium to small nasal pillows a couple of days ago, and I noticed it was a little harder to exhale through them, but not so much as to be a bother.

Last night my CPAP apparently increased pressure enough so that exhaling became difficult enough to wake me up. I tried to power through all of that, and eventually fell back to sleep. When I woke later the pressure felt normal. I do not understand why this happened.

There were a series of CA events indicated in SH that began just after I was awakened (!) and continued for 20 minutes. I don't understand how a CA event can happen when I am awake and consciously breathing normally. Well, almost normally, I was fighting the back pressure from the CPAP.

If it matters, I fell asleep without the CPAP originally, then woke up and started using it about 3 AM. This pressure issue started about 5:27.

The machine is easily fooled by awake breathing irregularities and will often flag centrals by mistake. Awake flagged events have to be discounted.
Hold your breath for 10 seconds...that's pretty much what a central is. No air flow but the airway is open.
The machine doesn't know if you are awake or not. It just records air flow or the lack of air flow.

As to why you woke with the feeling of higher pressure and having trouble exhaling...what was the pressure doing at that time?
Maybe it was a lot higher for some reason fighting snores or flow limitations or OAs.

Have you set EPR (exhalation relief) to a low level? If so, try it a bit higher.

I'm sorry, I'm an Engineer, but I don't know how to do that.

Possibly someone can help by explaining the process.

I have no idea what machine you are using but if you go here and request the clinical manual for whatever machine you are using it will explain features and what type of exhale relief it has and how to get to the ultra secret menu that you are locked out of.
http://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap-p ... tup-manual

You know it would really be helpful if you would register and add your equipment to your profile like I have mine. Then we can be more specific with our thoughts. Either that or type in your equipment with each new thread you make.

I assume you have some sort of ResMed S9 machine since you mention in another thread what appears to be a temperature setting on the humidifier. So probably the Climateline hose.

tyroneshoes2 wrote:Last night my CPAP apparently increased pressure enough so that exhaling became difficult enough to wake me up. I tried to power through all of that, and eventually fell back to sleep. When I woke later the pressure felt normal. I do not understand why this happened.

If the pressure bothers you enough to wake you up, you can probably hit the power button to turn it off and back on, and it will start over at the original pressure. Not a long term solution, but at least a temporary fix.