Can CPAP cause dependence on it?

Just curious. Thinking of it as I was using it last night.

Could the ....assistance... of the pressure feed of air weaken whatever was flopping around or closing even more than if no CPAP assistance were present?

Can breathing cause dependence? Water? food?

I understand what you're asking, but so far it hasn't been shown to do that. Age can make a difference of course, as it does anywhere else in your body, but it's really unlikely that the relatively little amount, under what's actually a pretty low amount of pressure, will change your anatomy any time soon enough to matter at all.

Napnea wrote:Just curious. Thinking of it as I was using it last night.

Could the ....assistance... of the pressure feed of air weaken whatever was flopping around or closing even more than if no CPAP assistance were present?

Not likely. And, if you ALWAYS use your machine when you're sleeping........it really doesn't matter, does it?


Den

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I wish it would cause dependence. Some people say that it's become a part of them and there is no way they could possibly sleep without. I can easily sleep without it and it's still a thought process to put it on.

I don't think it would cause dependence in the way you said... but even if it actually did, and you used the machine every nite with good results, why would it even matter?

Your already dependant on it

Greg Riddle wrote:Your already dependant on it

*lol* yeah, I was about to say that. it's not like you don't *already* need it!!

Napnea asks... Could the ....assistance... of the pressure feed of air weaken whatever was flopping around or closing even more than if no CPAP assistance were present?

And, it's a reasonable question.

My guess? Yes, it does. For the reason that we apneics develop response mechanisms to facilitate arousal (hormonal, muscular, etc), and these likely subside when not needed. (And, that's a good thing. Hypertension, neck muscular tension and spring-loaded adrenals are things we can happily do without when not performing a service to throttle us awake when strangling in our sleep.)

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ems wrote:I wish it would cause dependence. Some people say that it's become a part of them and there is no way they could possibly sleep without. I can easily sleep without it and it's still a thought process to put it on.

I don't think it would cause dependence in the way you said... but even if it actually did, and you used the machine every nite with good results, why would it even matter?

Precisely. The alternative is just too terrifying to think about. A Facebook friend just attended the funeral for a longtime friend of hers who died due to acute sleep apnea that he wasn't treating. "He didn't like the machine being attached to his face so he stopped using it." Thirty-nine years young, leaves behind a wife and five children. If I become dependent on this machine, I suppose I'll just have to watch my daughter get married and make me a grandmother in due time...

You've adapted to sleeping with apnea. Your brain has adapted to getting some sleep even though someone is strangling you a few dozen times an hour. Your body makes some physiological adaptations to oxygen deprivation, stress, poor sleep and other harmful effects of apnea. It's still killing you slowly, but you are somewhat adapted to it. If you do CPAP and then stop, apnea will probably affect you worse for a while.

If you do CPAP for a while, your brain will get used to this not happening. It will be much harder to sleep without CPAP for a while if you quit. Presumably, you'll eventually readapt to sleeping while being strangled.

Think of apnea as being like being a fifth a day liquor drinker. It's killing you slowly, but you sort of get by. If you stop drinking for a few months and then try to down a fifth in one day, it will affect you a lot more than it did when you were a serious alcohol user. You might even die.

If you do CPAP for a while, you'll feel worse than before for a while if you stop it. I suspect after a while, you'll readapt and be no worse off than before.

My thoughts are that "thing" is not lying down so air cannot pass by to your lungs. The cpap machine is helping the "thing" to lie down, or to get outta' the way. Even if it was "weaken", it would still be "in the way". Thus... the machine...

Sheriff

CPAP does not make the anatomical problem worse. In fact, it prevents the anatomical problem from becoming worse.

I consider my machine to be like glasses. I need to wear glasses. They do not make my eyes weak,
but if I didn't wear them, I would bump into things and hurt myself. Heck yes, I'm dependent,
but that is a stupid reason to not use them.

chunkyfrog wrote:I consider my machine to be like glasses. I need to wear glasses. They do not make my eyes weak,
but if I didn't wear them, I would bump into things and hurt myself. Heck yes, I'm dependent,
but that is a stupid reason to not use them.

Great post CF as someone who also wears glasses.

I guess I'm already dependent. I told my husband the other day that I wished I could use it all day long.