Breathing Crashed New to CPAP (First Post as well)

[BikeisDusty]

Hello all, I am new to the board and to the CPAP community. I just picked a Resmed Airsense 10 this week with a Swift FX pillow. I have not made it a full night with it, but every night is getting easier. My sleep study showed mild to moderate sleep apnea with 15 events an hour. The naps and sleeps on the CPAP show 5 events or fewer per hour on the CPAP, which I would think is an improvement. I also feel like the sleep is better, except for last night.

I was struggling the first few nights with getting to sleep and some discomfort, so I turned up the humidity from 4 to 6 and turned off the Autoramp. Going to sleep is easier now. Found this information reading this board and another.

Last night, I had a very weird event where I woke up out of a deep sleep with a racing and pounding heart and erratic breathing. I was all out of sorts with this as I was in a deep sleep, which I do not think I had been able to achieve in for ever, and then had this crazy event. Looking through the boards, I found the SleepyHead software to took a look at the data. It appears that some event happened that caused a spike in the breathing cycle, then over the next 20 minutes my breathing oscillated. The last 5 minutes of the breathing went totally out of control of short and long breaths, then I woke up. The other data does not show any snores or mask leaks until about the time I woke up and started to move around. As a note, I did not use the CPAP for the rest of the night.

Is this normal getting use to the CPAP or a sign of something else? I did send a note to my doc as well about it.

Your thoughts?
Thanks,
Bill

[ChicagoGranny]

Is this normal getting use to the CPAP or a sign of something else?

There is no way for us to know. But, I would not become overly concerned about it (unless you have been diagnosed with a heart condition). As you learn to analyze the data, you may get some clues. When something like this happens to me, I like to zoom in on the wave forms.

Read Pugsy's post on what data is meaningful and how to organize your charts. It's the first post on the index page - "Pugsy's Pointers...SleepyHead Tutorial and TX Hints".

Don't expect to master the CPAP process overnight. But, you seem to have gotten off to a great start.

[BlackSpinner]

Try to post the graphs you got from sleephead (as well as all your equipment details) and someone knowledgeable will help you figure out what was going on and how to adjust your equipment to prevent it in the future.

[grayghost4]

It sound like this it the FIRST rem sleep you have had (maybe for years) and yes that is normal when starting therapy. Normally you enter rem sleep about 90 min. after going to sleep and go in and out of rem at about one hour periods, and for me the last one in the sleep cycle is the deepest and wildest, and when most of my AHI happens.

[Heart Jumping]

Last night, I had a very weird event where I woke up out of a deep sleep with a racing and pounding heart and erratic breathing....

Your thoughts?

What you mean when you say racing and pounding heart could be quite different from what another person means, it could be quite benign (just dreaming) or more serious, no one here can say whether it's normal. It may well be, and probably is, nothing to worry about. I'd let your doctor know about it the next time you see them, but if it happens again and it doesn't feel physically right I wouldn't wait to schedule an appointment.

[BikeisDusty]

I am not sure which sections of data to post so I will just see if it happens again. Reading Pugsy's info is interesting. One would think the doc or the DME would give you a bit more than here is a box, now have at it.

Merry Christmas,
Bill

[BikeisDusty]

I wonder if I am running out of air as well. I read another post about the Medium sized Swift doing similar to another guy. The large size actually seems to fit a bit better and delivers more air. I will that a go to see if that helps.