First night with CPAP trial

[DylansNaNA]

I am new on here and would like to know if anyone has a suggestion. I was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea. I was given the CPAP machine for the clinic to determine what is the therapeutic pressure for me. I will use this CPAP for 5 nights, then return the CPAP so they can determine my therapeutic pressure. My situation is this I used the CPAP for the first time last night (no humidifier). I fell asleep at approx. 9 pm, at 10:30pm I woke up feeling as if I were being suffocated. I woke up in panic and ripped the mask off my face. I fell back asleep and again I woke up feeling like I was being suffocated. This happened a total of 4 times. I was wondering if anyone else experienced this? If so, what did you do and how are you doing now. I need this therapy. I was diagnosed with up to 27 episodes of sleep apnea per hour.
Thank you kindly in advance for reading my topic and offering your suggestion(s).
DylansNaNa

[GayleM]

Sounds to me like the pressure may be set too low. Do you know what it's set at? You should probably call the clinic and let them know what's going on.

[ems]

I think the pressure is low also or at least not the correct pressure for you. I recently had a similar situation. My pressure was adjusted just a little and I'm no longer taking the mask off in my sleep. Absolutely get in touch with the clinic.

[kteague]

I agree with those suggesting your pressure may be too low and to contact your provider. Most of these trials are set for a range of pressures and as it detects events it begins increasing pressure to an effective level. Problem is, this can take quite a while if it has a long way to go to reach that pressure. Your supplier should be able to increase the lower pressure and hopefully avoid what you're now experiencing. Without knowing the specifics of your machine or settings, I'll just mention that some machines offer a ramp feature, a sort of buffer zone of low pressure to give the user time to acclimate before the higher pressure begins. Machines using the ramp restart this ramp every time the machine stops then starts.

A trial period that is supposed to determine your therapeutic pressure won't be very accurate if you are unable to sleep deep enough or long enough to get good real-life data. Better they change it now than make a decision with less info that the time period was intended to provide.

[jweeks]

I was given the CPAP machine for the clinic to determine what is the therapeutic pressure for me.

Hi,

See if you can get a real sleep study at a hospital or sleep center. Doing it with a CPAP machine gives only one channel of data. That doesn't give the professionals much information to work with. A hospital or sleep center sleep study often has over 20 channels of data. That is a lot more accurate. These home studies can work for the fraction of patients that have very easy cookie-cutter sleep disorders. But if you have anything beyond the cookie-cutter type of sleep apnea, all this is going to do is mess you up. The fact that you are having issues with the machine seems to suggest that you are not a good candidate for the home study. If they need you to fail this study before giving a referral for a titration study, then help them out by failing fast and convincingly.

-john-

[DylansNaNA]

Hi, just a small note of thanks for reading and responding. I received more information from you than my provider. I have an appt Monday to return the machine. I will definitely ask better questions. Thank you again.
Heather (DylansNaNa).