Using Cpap while sitting up

Today I was using my cpap machine while sitting up watching tv because I've had some coughing problems lately and cpap helps with that. Well a strange thing happened while I was using it. I felt pressure in my head area that I've never felt while laying down and all of a sudden my left ear popped loudly and I could hear the cpap air inside my ear, it was super loud. Now I'm afraid I've done something to my ear and dread putting it back on. Has anyone else experienced this and if so did it resolve after a period of time?

Is your breathing amplified when you are not using cpap?
I have had this. (Before cpap---for a week) It is congestion inside part of your ear.
See your doctor, he may be able to help.
Cpap is not likely to be related, but sitting upright or changing position may be.

I've been having a bad bout of coughing this week chunkyfrog, dry cough no congestion, it starts in the morning when I take the nasal pillows off and continues til night. Tried to visit the urgent care but they were packed so I came back home. I hope I didn't blow my ear drum out, the pressure was pretty heavy.

Very unlikely there is any damage to the ear. What you experienced is the same thing that happens when you change elevations rapidly...your ears pop from the pressure change. This is probably in part due to congestion, but I get pressure popping (equalizing) all the time. Once the pressure equalizes, your hearing does become more acute. That's a GOOD thing because it means you didn't break anything.

Read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_clearing

In my youth, I had lots of ear popping, and ears plugging up with any cold.
I might have had tubes put in, but it was long before they did that.
Once I had my ears plugged up for a whole week after blowing up balloons.
I swore off balloons.

Did you feel any pain when your ear popped? If not, I wouldn't worry. If there is pain, get it seen to.

It happens to me often, I push on the skin just in front of the canal and behind the jaw bone, that seems to help with the sudden loudness.

I hope I'm making sense, my laptop died and I'm using my tablet. Being a touch typist, the tablet can be a bit hard.

You evidently swallowed while your body was under pressure thus forcing air up your eustachian tube. This is the same thing that happens when you dive down deep in the water and hold your nose while blowing to equalize the pressure in your ears. The trick while you're on CPAP pressure is to wait until you have exhaled all your air and, while not breathing, swallow. You can then resume breathing.

I hope this may help.

Air from CPAP can go up your Eustachian tube and make your ears pop, even if you're laying down.

I wouldn't think the CPAP pressure would be high enough to damage your eardrum, but I can't say for sure. It seems to me that if CPAP could do damage, you'd blow your ears out every time you blew your nose or sneezed with a stopped up nose.

Forget about whether CPAP caused it and consider the symptoms. If the same thing happened when you blew your nose, what would you do? Sometimes you can rupture an eardrum from various causes. I can't really tell you whether you've done that. Do some research and decide if you need to see a doctor.

I perforated my ear drum once. I think it was more painful than childbirth! I had a bad ear infection already and I was driving over a hill and my ears popped. Omg, I almost lost control of my car! It was probably ready to "blow" anyway, but that change in pressure did it.

It healed on its own but it took several weeks during which I couldn't really hear out of that ear. I never had ear infections as a child but I have great sympathy for children who do. My little one was prone to them when she started school, never as a baby.

And my husband had bilateral ear infections when he used saline irrigation a little too enthusiastically for a bad sinus infection. I have never seen him in that much agony before!

If you weren't in horrible pain it's just likely a change in pressure.