How do I stop the lightheadedness?

I had found earlier that if I had my machine on while I was awake, I would get lightheaded fairly quickly, but that it would go away shortly after turning off my machine. Now, I've been finding getting to sleep uncomfortable due to lightheadedness that also goes away shortly after (within a couple minutes) I turn off my machine. Unfortunately, going without my machine is not a good option for when I plan on sleeping. How do I get this to stop, while still keeping everything on? It doesn't seem to be affected by my position, and about the only thing that's keeping me from going into an outright panic when I start noticing it is that I lay in the middle of the bed, I can feel that I am laying down on what feels to be a safe surface, and hence I cannot fall down.

It sounds like you're hyperventilating, either by respiratory rate or tidal volume or some aspect of both. Have you tried turning the ramp on when you feel like this? I realize this only lowers the pressure, but that can also help to lower the tidal volume somewhat. Might also concentrate on NOT breathing deep - try to make it 'average' (whatever that is for you).

What does your data say?

Anxiety can make you breath more often than you need to. I hyperventillated (or tried to) frequently when I first started on the mask. Try to get calm and forget about your breathing. Now, I do not have a CPAP. But, I will speculate that when lying down sleeping the pressure needed to keep your airway open gives you just enough pressure to let you breath. But sitting up reading, awake; your airway is open and that same pressure is maybe giving you too much for your normal breathing rate. Try not to panic and just breath slower, and see if that does not fix the problem. My two cents

Normally, the only time I have the machine on when I'm awake is when I'm laying down, trying to sleep. Occasionally, I'll have it on in the middle of the day for such things as mask adjustment or trying different Flex settings. I don't sit up reading with it on. If I can't sleep, I turn off the machine and remove my mask before I go off to read.

I disabled ramp on my machine ages ago, because it made me feel I wasn't getting enough air.

I don't try to breathe deeply, although I normally end up trying to breathe slower, closer to how I normally breathe when I am resting, not a quickly as if I've just been running for a bus. When I wake up at night, I tend to be back at the quicker rate, but it tends not to bother me too much then (but sometimes it does). I didn't notice anything unusual about my numbers, the only one that stuck out was a lower than average number of pressure pulses per hour.

Got a blood pressure cuff?

What's your systolic blood pressure pre- and during this event?

deltadave wrote:Got a blood pressure cuff?

Nope, although I know where I could get one.

tetragon,

Are you using Flex? Could it be that you are somehow subconsciously feeling that Flex is trying to rush you to inhale when it starts to bring the pressure back up during the second half of your exhalations?

I think next you have to look at ear stuff.

Like alternating barigo... something....

robysue wrote:Are you using Flex? Could it be that you are somehow subconsciously feeling that Flex is trying to rush you to inhale when it starts to bring the pressure back up during the second half of your exhalations?

I'm currently using C-Flex set at 2. It is possible that Flex is making me feel rushed, but I don't think that's the issue (although, given how bad I find C-Flex+, who knows). When I pay attention, I still end up lightheaded, but with slower breaths than when I sleep.

Looking at last night's half hour session that I didn't sleep in, has been interesting. I finally got a chance to see what jedimark did to the pie chart for no events. It also reminded me that I really should check on the calculations; they're better than they used to be, but they still get confused on occasion.

Have you had those spells before using a CPAP?

If YES then check this:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dizzin ... ION=causes


If NO and you suspect that the CPAP is doing it then I would shut off all Flexes and boost the inhaling pressure somewhat to increase the flow.

As to blood pressure monitor I have recently bought this one from Amazon.com for less than $50. It's Consumer Reports best buy:

"Microlife Bp3na1-1x Deluxe..."

You may want to have it on sitting up reading. Just maybe it is anxiety and you just have to wear it to feel comfortable.
Either that or learn to enjoy the lightheadedness, that it means that you are going to float away to sleep.

BlackSpinner wrote:Either that or learn to enjoy the lightheadedness, that it means that you are going to float away to sleep.

Lightheadedness is not something that I can enjoy, and it is not associated with floating. In my non-sleep times, it is what warns of an impending, localized increase of gravity. And the consequences of anyone noticing can be annoying, though context-dependent. Having to sit down immediately after getting up? Generally ignored. Slumping over in front of the nurse who just gave you your flu shot? Instructions to mention it next time and stuck in her office until she decides it's safe (and it was even more annoying when she remembered me the next time, right after I had mentioned it. I go in, hoping it would only take a couple minutes, it was considerably longer, thanks to her caution and preference for people retaining consciousness). Even in the unobserved contexts it isn't pleasant. I have found that I have better things to do than hit my head collapsing in the shower.

And after I had mentioned this happening when exercising, I got sent off to a cardiologist who can't explain for beans, who took a couple blood pressure measurements and stated that I need to eat more salt. Is it my fault my blood pressure went from 100/60 to 85/50 when he had me stand? (he also had an echo, a stress test, and a Holter done. They were all normal)

tetragon wrote:

robysue wrote:Are you using Flex? Could it be that you are somehow subconsciously feeling that Flex is trying to rush you to inhale when it starts to bring the pressure back up during the second half of your exhalations?

I'm currently using C-Flex set at 2. It is possible that Flex is making me feel rushed, but I don't think that's the issue (although, given how bad I find C-Flex+, who knows). When I pay attention, I still end up lightheaded, but with slower breaths than when I sleep.

If you hate C-Flex+, then maybe turning C-Flex down to 1 or even turning it off would help. It's at least worth a try for a few minutes since turning it on and off is not that hard.

deltadave wrote:What's your systolic blood pressure pre- and during this event?

When sitting up, effectively the same (112 before, 111 during). The number with the greatest magnitude of change was my pulse during the measurements. The earlier measurement was 80, the latter was 70.

tetragon wrote:

deltadave wrote:What's your systolic blood pressure pre- and during this event?

When sitting up, effectively the same (112 before, 111 during). The number with the greatest magnitude of change was my pulse during the measurements. The earlier measurement was 80, the latter was 70.

How did you measure your heart rate? One of those "all in one machines"?

When one hears "lightheadedness" (as opposed to "vertigo" or "dizziness"), one should think blood supply first. Since this appears to be a very transient event, we have to monitor more closely. Remember how you took the Zeo to generate an EKG signal?

OTOH, if we're considering the presence of an underlying cardiac arrhythmia, we may be moving out of the DIY milieu (I like saying "milieu") and having to go get a Holter.

What do you think, eh?

Good idea, eh?

If you come back with a clean bill of health, we'll celebrate with a 2 - 4, eh?