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O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 2:19 pm
by ARod
Hey,

My doctor recommended adding supplemental oxygen to my CPAP therapy, so I'm using one of those machines that draws O2 from normal air.

The problem is, at the recommended flow rate of one liter per minute, I woke up feeling awful. My head felt like it was going to explode, and didn't clear up for more than 12 hours.

Did I experience O2 toxicity or O2 poisoning? I've read online that breathing pressurized oxygen can be very bad.

Has anyone else experienced this? What went wrong? Why would my doctor prescribe supplemental O2, without mentioning the possibility of O2 poisoning? Or do I have this all wrong?

Help please!

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 2:22 pm
by Stormynights
What is your oxygen setting and how is it ported?

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 2:45 pm
by TangledHose
No Way...........one liter per minuted diluted into the stream of air from CPAP wouldn't even be in the ball park for O2 tox. There is some other reason for you not feeling well.

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 2:54 pm
by MrStein
I agree, 1lpm seem way too low to cause 02 tox, but everyone has different bodies/reactions.
I would call my dr. right away to be sure. Good luck.

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 3:00 pm
by DiverCTHunter
You could try renting an O2 meter from the DME or a SCUBA shop, but I'd be shocked if that low a flow got you higher than a 21% ratio.

Someone who's younger than me chime in with the Boyle's Law math, please.

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 5:36 pm
by Kate M
ARod wrote:
Did I experience O2 toxicity or O2 poisoning? I've read online that breathing pressurized oxygen can be very bad.

Has anyone else experienced this? What went wrong? Why would my doctor prescribe supplemental O2, without mentioning the possibility of O2 poisoning? Or do I have this all wrong?
ARod -- Room air has approximately (I DO mean approximately!) 21% oxygen. If you were to breathe 1L of Oxygen through a nasal cannula you would only be increasing the percentage to approximately 24 or 25%. The reason your doctor did not warn you about the possibility is that there really is no possibility of getting oxygen toxicity with this tiny increase. The oxygen concentrators don't even technically give you MORE oxygen, they actually take away nitrogen from the room air that flows through it thus increasing the percentage of oxygen in the air that it blows.

No worries about 02 toxicity, but I hope you figure out why you felt so bad!

Blessings,

Kate

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 6:03 pm
by Todzo
ARod wrote:Hey,

My doctor recommended adding supplemental oxygen to my CPAP therapy, so I'm using one of those machines that draws O2 from normal air.

The problem is, at the recommended flow rate of one liter per minute, I woke up feeling awful. My head felt like it was going to explode, and didn't clear up for more than 12 hours.

Did I experience O2 toxicity or O2 poisoning? I've read online that breathing pressurized oxygen can be very bad.

Has anyone else experienced this? What went wrong? Why would my doctor prescribe supplemental O2, without mentioning the possibility of O2 poisoning? Or do I have this all wrong?

Help please!
What about the possibility that the CPAP causes you to breath more so the problem becomes too little CO2 (which, strangly, causes too little O2 to reach our hungry cells)??

Ever wake up breathing hard??

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 6:17 pm
by Stormynights
If I sleep with my oxygen off I get a horrible headache. I accidently pulled the line out one night. Another time it somehow got turned down. I am supposed to leave it at 2 but 3 feels better. I tried it at 4 and that didn't give me a headache at all.

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 6:29 pm
by TangledHose
I have been using O2 supplement at 2 liters per minute through concentrator bled into my pap line right between the mask and hose for years - - I read one post on this board where the gentleman was using 4 liters per minute due to his copd. It just gets so diluted with the cpap air that you can't get enough O2 to do any damage. If your doctor prescribed O2 it's because you are desaturated without it, so all the increase would do is attempt to bring you back up to a normal, or near normal range while you sleep at night and you'd probably find that if you checked with a pulse ox overnight you were still only around 90% blood saturation, or near normal but probably not up where a young healthy person would be during sleep.

I was an avid scuba diver and used Nitrox often where we got the mix of breathing gas up to 36% O2 - - and then you could run into O2 toxicity, but only after going down fairly deep for too long a time - - under those circumstances you would be absorbing the oxygen under real pressure (2 to 3 times sea level atmosphere depending on depth) but even with those substantially higher partial pressures of Oxygen you could still dive within the limits for an hour or more depending on depth -- I guess my point is you would really have to have a lot more oxygen and a lot more pressure than a cpap with O2 supplement to cause any problems. No cpap with O2 can possibly approach those conditions.

I would be much more suspect of some of the O2 concentrator machines that some DMEs provide and their mechanical condition than the oxygen itself - most concentrators have a low oxygen sensor that would beep if they detected the oxygen they were sending out dropped below 80 precent at the outlet - but one of my concerns with some of the old beat up machines out there was what kind of air was really coming out of the machines. At some point it was less expensive to buy my own concentrator and it came with a certificate that it was developing 93 to 96 percent oxygen coming out of the machine and that was when it's new from the factory. I am shocked at the condition of some of the machines that I rented from Apria - they were real dinosaurs and VERY noisy! But I digress

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 8:57 pm
by Wulfman...
ARod wrote:Hey,

My doctor recommended adding supplemental oxygen to my CPAP therapy, so I'm using one of those machines that draws O2 from normal air.

The problem is, at the recommended flow rate of one liter per minute, I woke up feeling awful. My head felt like it was going to explode, and didn't clear up for more than 12 hours.

Did I experience O2 toxicity or O2 poisoning? I've read online that breathing pressurized oxygen can be very bad.

Has anyone else experienced this? What went wrong? Why would my doctor prescribe supplemental O2, without mentioning the possibility of O2 poisoning? Or do I have this all wrong?

Help please!
Hey!

How about filling out your profile so we know what equipment (and settings) you're using?

If you're using a nasal mask, maybe you were leaking much of your therapy air out your mouth during the night. That might account for what you described.


Den

.

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 9:24 pm
by DoriC
Kate M wrote:
ARod wrote:
Did I experience O2 toxicity or O2 poisoning? I've read online that breathing pressurized oxygen can be very bad.

Has anyone else experienced this? What went wrong? Why would my doctor prescribe supplemental O2, without mentioning the possibility of O2 poisoning? Or do I have this all wrong?
ARod -- Room air has approximately (I DO mean approximately!) 21% oxygen. If you were to breathe 1L of Oxygen through a nasal cannula you would only be increasing the percentage to approximately 24 or 25%. The reason your doctor did not warn you about the possibility is that there really is no possibility of getting oxygen toxicity with this tiny increase. The oxygen concentrators don't even technically give you MORE oxygen, they actually take away nitrogen from the room air that flows through it thus increasing the percentage of oxygen in the air that it blows.

No worries about 02 toxicity, but I hope you figure out why you felt so bad!

Blessings,

Kate
Thanks for that good information, one less thing for me to worry about!

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 5:05 am
by -tim
O2 issues -- no.

O2 oxidising something and that causing you problems is far more likely.

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 5:09 pm
by ARod
Hey everyone,thanks for your responses.

I use a Respironics System One, Auto A-Flex, 560 series.

My prescription is set for the 9-13 range, and I don't enable the flex option because it throws off my breathing.

The O2 machine is a QuietLife 5 Air Sep.
My mistake,the machine should have been at one 1lpm, but I set it to four.
At 1lpm, I don't feel the dizziness or headaches.
Maybe I had it set too high.

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 5:22 pm
by chunkyfrog
Yep, always double check the setting--you are like Goldilocks now.
"...You get too much and you get high; not enough and you die." (apologies to Scott and Griffin of Sweet)

Re: O2 + CPAP = Oxygen poisoning?

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 9:04 pm
by dnthomas
Been on CPAP for about 8 years. Recently had a new one night sleep study and got some new equipment and doc put me o an O2 bleed in. Continuous flow set on 2. Certainly been a change for the better. Wanted to try a setting of 3 and thought I would ask if this could cause a problem. From my research it seems at those low levels it should not be a problem. Thoughts?