Can’t fall asleep with bipap

I suffer from uars and fell asleep successfully with CPAP at 7.4 and 5.4 but it gives me worse anxiety than not treating it so I think I have to use bipap. It feels like the exhale is inducing horrible anxiety

I tried it and I could not fall asleep. I have a resmed aircurve 10 vauto. I have it set as

no ramp
Ipap 8
Epap 3.4
Easy breathe on
Timax 4 s
To min 0.4 s
Trigger high
Cycle high
Mask: pillow
Essentials on

Every time I felt like I was gonna fall asleep, it jolted me awake. I think it’s not giving me enough time to breathe out. When I fall asleep I tend breathe deeper and slower and the machine just would not allow me to do that so I never fell asleep. Is there a setting I can change so that it mimics my natural breathing pattern better ??

zonker wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 03, 2020 7:01 pm

Sallyy wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 03, 2020 4:41 pm

I suffer from uars and fell asleep successfully with CPAP at 7.4 and 5.4 but it gives me worse anxiety than not treating it so I think I have to use bipap. It feels like the exhale is inducing horrible anxiety

welcome to the zoo! i have nothing to tell you regarding bilevl or asv or any of that. aren't you glad i responded?

i'm just here to ask what the above paragraph means. are you saying you had an apap (NOT a fixed pressure cpap) and it was set to 7.4 and 5.4? or just, what?

why did you think you "had to use bipap"?

or is the bilevel machine your first machine?

i'm so confused....

I meant I slept with the CPAP set at 5.4 one night and 7.4 on another night. Bipap is my second machine

I think I have to use bipap because CPAP gives me worse anxiety than not treating it. without CPAP I wake up after 3 hours with anxiety and heart-pounding if I sleep on my back. If I sleep without cpap and sleep on my side I wake up without my heart pounding. So using cpap while sleeping on my SIDE woke me up 2 hours later and I had the worst anxiety and heart pounding and had much difficulty falling asleep.. I don’t think it’s something I can get used to or overcome...

Sallyy wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 03, 2020 4:41 pm

I suffer from uars and fell asleep successfully with CPAP at 7.4 and 5.4 but it gives me worse anxiety than not treating it so I think I have to use bipap. It feels like the exhale is inducing horrible anxiety

I tried it and I could not fall asleep. I have a resmed aircurve 10 vauto. I have it set as

no ramp
Ipap 8
Epap 3.4
Easy breathe on
Timax 4 s
To min 0.4 s
Trigger high
Cycle high
Mask: pillow
Essentials on

Every time I felt like I was gonna fall asleep, it jolted me awake. I think it’s not giving me enough time to breathe out. When I fall asleep I tend breathe deeper and slower and the machine just would not allow me to do that so I never fell asleep. Is there a setting I can change so that it mimics my natural breathing pattern better ??

The EasyBreathe setting that you have on now is what’s supposed to help mimic your natural breathing pattern. I can’t use my machine without it now that I’m used to it. There is one more setting, the rise time, that you could possibly adjust, but I’m not familiar enough with it to suggest how to tweak it, or if it even works with EasyBreathe on. Personally I’m skeptical that this is the source of your anxiety. The pressure levels you have been on are pretty mild. I’m on a BiPAP currently set for 15/7. I don’t use the ramp feature that starts those numbers off lower because I feel like I’m suffocating. How did you come by the numbers you have been using?

I know this reply is a while after your post.

Can I ask why you are not using Auto (AutoPAP for cpap, Auto mode on BiPap) so the machine can use algorithyms of your breathing to adjust the settings? It could be your Dr is just setting it to non auto settings, but you can change that yourself.

Letting the machine algorithms decide the pressures to use and then seeing what you are using on your own can give you a lot of information in the Oscar charts.

Norma45 wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 01, 2020 2:12 pm

I know this reply is a while after your post.

Can I ask why you are not using Auto (AutoPAP for cpap, Auto mode on BiPap) so the machine can use algorithyms of your breathing to adjust the settings? It could be your Dr is just setting it to non auto settings, but you can change that yourself.

Letting the machine algorithms decide the pressures to use and then seeing what you are using on your own can give you a lot of information in the Oscar charts.

Hi Norma,

I'm new here and also new to using a BiPap, which is much different than my Cpap (I only learned just enough about that). I want to educate and was trying to figure out the easybreathe and stumbled across your post.

I too have been having anxiety/palpitations but I didn't before. It happens more when I turn on the easy breathe feature. With my CPap I used Ipap 10. For the switch to the BiPap I lowered the pressure and set it to: Ipap 8 Epap 3. It's great because I can exhale now But bad because my heart starts palping like I'm watching a horror film. My instinct tells me it has to do with the pressure and easybreathe which I was told to turn on.

Can you please direct me on how to use Auto, the machine algorithms, to determine what settings I should be on?

Freckster,

Do you have Oscar installed? If not install it and start looking at reports.

Things to look for...
Is there anything where the graph is up at the max level most of the time/a lot of the time?
This can tell you if a setting needs to be increased.

For me Ti Max was at the top of the setting all the time (with the settings on the machine when I got it). When I increased that it made a big difference in everything - ability to breath out, not waking up, inhale and exhale respiration times, respirations a minute, etc.

What do you see for your inhalation and exhalation and respiratory times?
Do you have mask leaks?

Again you are looking for something that is out of the "normal" range.

If you post your oscar charts, everyone can look at then and get more clues of what might helps.
Start a thread so people can see all your information in one place.

Hi Norma,

I have a ResMed S9 Vpap and was told Oscar doesn't support ResMed. If I'm wrong please let me know.
Also I'm a bit computer illiterate. When you asked me if I had installed it, did you mean on my computer? Should I use the disc from the machine to read the report?
*Update: I don't know how I got the impression Oscar didn't support ResMed. I am downloading.

Report from the machine:

1) Negative regarding mask leaks.

2) The Ti min/max had been on the default settings of .3 and 2 respectively. My instinct told me the max needed to be a little higher so last night I set it to 3. I had a much better experience and was able to keep it on all night and didn't have any palpitations. However it seemed like the transition from inhale to exhale wasn't very smooth. I believe I have difficulty with the pillows because of nasal congestion, so I naturally open my mouth to breathe sometimes and that seems to complicate the cycle. I've recently ordered a new mask kit with cushion.

3) I turned off the easy breathe again. At first I had it on again but I struggled for an unknown reason.

I'm not sure what this means: "What do you see for your inhalation and exhalation and respiratory times?". I will go look at the machine report again to see if there is any more information.

Thanks!@!

Correction. I actually did have Easy Breathe on last night. Also, there was no other information available on the machine.

Sorry, I am not on the forum often.

I saw you were able to get oscar and download it, so hopefully you can get some charts posted and get some replies.

Hi Sallyy, It's been a very long time since my settings were finalized changed on my Resmed air curve 10, Bipap ST, Mode ST. I'm also sure there are many variables. It probably took almost 6 months to get comfortable with the machine.

My settings are now:
IPAP 15.2 EPAP 10.4
Ti Max 1.4s
RESPIRATORY RATE 12.O

When I first started and for quite a while, I could not get used to the inhale and exhale time (not long enough), so I asked my sleep specialist to adjust the a setting. My recollection is that he changed the respiratory rate from 10.0 to 12.0. It seemed to help, and I was able to fall asleep and stay much easier. Just my experience.