feel myself stop breathing

I'm a new user of the cpap and my sleep is horrible. I notice myself beginning to drift off to sleep then feel myself stop breathing, get alarmed and then back to full consciousness. This seems to be happening throughout the night so as a result getting no sleep. I assumed that it was not enough pressure (Im at 8 pressure) I spoke with my sleep coach and asked about increasing the pressure so as to stop the apneas so I can sleep but she is hesitant to do that since I'm only about a week into this. She wants me to keep at it for now but my intuition says I need to go higher. Any thoughts from you veterans out there?

Pretty sure that's normal. I have it to when I'm going to sleep or taking a nap or sometimes if I zone out while awake. I wouldn't make any changes to anything without at least using a program like sleepyhead to review your data.

What machine are you using?
Brand and model?

Im using the airsense 10

The ResMed AirSense 10 has 4 models available. Which model are you using?

AirSense 10 CPAP
AirSense 10 Elite
AirSense 10 AutoSet
AirSense 10 AutoSet for Her

If you have anything other than the "CPAP" model go here and follow the links and get SleepyHead software.
https://sleep.tnet.com/equipment

Install and let's see what that the machine might be doing when you are falling asleep. For help in installing.
http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph ... d#pid73182

Check your machine to see if you even have a SD card in the SD slot. Seems like they are now shipping machines without SD cards.
See the manual for where the SD card slot is...and save it because there's some really useful information in it you might need later.
https://sleep.tnet.com/home/files/resme ... -guide.pdf

If you have the "CPAP" model...we get to have a different discussion about the machine. It doesn't offer any detailed data to maybe help us out in terms of figuring out what the problem might be. Hopefully you have any model but that one.

Don't assume that "more pressure" fixes all apnea events. It doesn't always do that and in some cases can even make things worse so let's try to figure out the problem first and then see what the options are for fixing the problem.
If you are having a bunch of sleep onset centrals bouncing you out of sleep....more pressure isn't going to fix them.

usmcvet,
can you tell me more about sleepyhead? Thanks

It is the AirSense 10 CPAP

I did register at myair so I do have nightly numbers - events per hour, etc. Last night I had almost 11 events per hour

Don't bother with SleepyHead.
SleepyHead can't show you what your machine doesn't gather.

It shows AHI...but not what the AHI is composed of and what it is composed of is very important if you are having sleep onset central apneas. It will show a 95% leak rate and pressure used...that's all it shows. Very limited summary numbers only.
Might work fine if you are reporting feeling great and sleeping great...but you aren't.

You need a better machine that offers more details than what you can get off this machine.

There is zero way to know what might be happening when you are falling asleep and then bouncing out of sleep.
Without more information all we can do is guess.

Get with your doctor about your problem with lack of detailed data.
Ask your DME to swap out the machine for a full efficacy data machine.

Here's what can be seen on a full efficacy data machine using SleepyHead.



Here's what you will see minus the event categories....you get AHI only and none of the sub categories. I don't have an example of just that AHI report.

Hi jonmarkfreeman,
I had something similar when I started with my CPAP. I was listening to my breathing which I could hear in my mask. Then just as I was going off to sleep I would wake myself up with a breath after it seemed like I was holding my breath.
I found that white noise from a fan helped. I then wasn't able to hear my breathing very easily.

You won't have apneas that you can 'tell' are happening unless you're asleep. What you're having are clear airway events that commonly occur just as you drift off and/or prior to waking, and they're nothing to worry about. Stop trying to gauge what's happening from being semi-awake because it won't work and the machine won't register it accurately (for apneas) til you're asleep. The machine doesn't 'know' you're asleep, but your breathing patterns change and it senses those.

I had much the same issue when I switched from my old cpap, to my new Airsense 10 Autoset. It's so quiet compared to the old machine, I can hear everything, and it's scary. So, I bought a white noise machine that has an earphone jack, have it set to a "FAN" sound, and use soft completely in-ear earphones (Maxrock). So, I no longer can hear every breath and every noise in the room.

It made all the difference in the world to me, and I intend on staying with that setup from now on.

Maybe that would also work for you.

If you have gos insurance go back to your doctor for a sleep test.
If you are self funded, get the doctor to write a script for a monthly rental, that will show the breakdown of the apnea. Or buy a cheap auto apap with sd card off of c/list, etc

There's nothing like starting cpap therapy to make someone overly conscious of their breathing. And then freaking out. You MAY be experiencing sleep onset centrals, which is absolutely normal - our breathing is controlled differently when awake and asleep, and during the crossover clear airway apneas can occur.