High pressures causing sleep disturbance

[nimboo]

Hey guys, AJ here again on behalf of my dad (he'd be doing this himself, but he isn't the best with computers lol)

So my dad is having a bit of a dilema. He said that last night he woke up around 6am feeling like the pressure was way too high. He believes the pressure woke him.

Now, he wants your advice on his mask - he believes his mask leakage is causing the pressures to overcompensate and get too high.

He is using a very old mask, and we are about to order a new one on Monday, but he wants to get some sleep tonight and tomorrow.

Here is a snap of sleepyhead from last night, as well as a photo of his mask: http://imgur.com/a/cZOAH

He was thinking that the exhaust (the exhaust is right above the tape on the hose area) is letting too much air out. He wants to know if taping half of this exhaust area shut will help the pressures get lower.

Also, I want you guys to know he has a deviated septum, and this mask pushes on it. For this reason we are considering getting a full face mask this time (the quattro fx). What are your thoughts on this? Mark from secondwindcpap told us that deviated septums are one of the main reasons people get full face masks - because the machine can interpret the deviated septum as a soft tissue blockage and increase the pressure too much?

Thank you for your advice, my dad and I really appreciate you guys.

[Julie]

Has your father ever been diagnosed with complex or central apnea?

His pressures are not low, but not unusually high, but SH shows predominantly clear airway events and his machine can't treat those. Raising the pressure even more would be counterproductive as it could aggravate things rather than help. There are others here more familiar with the type of machine (ASV) that he might need, but does he have a real sleep doctor or only a GP who apparently isn't fully educated on what's what (or has he not seen the SH printouts?). Someone else should be along soon to advise further.

[Wulfman...]

From what I see in that report, I would suggest limiting the max pressure to 10 or 11......OR......try a straight pressure of 10 or 11 and see what some nights at those settings look like.


Den

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[palerider]

Now, he wants your advice on his mask - he believes his mask leakage is causing the pressures to overcompensate and get too high.

he'd be wrong about that. machines *NEVER* EVER raise pressure to compensate for leaks.... ever.. for one thing, it might end up delivering more than prescribed pressure.

what they *DO* is to increase the air FLOW to maintain the desired pressure.

He was thinking that the exhaust (the exhaust is right above the tape on the hose area) is letting too much air out. He wants to know if taping half of this exhaust area shut will help the pressures get lower.

no, it won't. it might cause him to rebreath significant amounts of co2 though, depending on what other leaks there are in the mask.

because the machine can interpret the deviated septum as a soft tissue blockage and increase the pressure too much?

seeing the flow limitation chart as indicated in the above links would tell us more on that point.

I also don't advocate setting the pressure to a straight 10 or 11, since that's in the range that your father though was surprisingly high.

for me, that'd be low, since my pressures *start* at 13.

[Matt00926]

I would not cover the area at all unless he wants to risk waking up with a nasty headache thanks to CO2. It probably only gets to that pressure when sleeping, maybe even just in REM sleep. When I wake up and feel like my pressure is too high I just turn off the machine and turn it back on and fall back asleep.

[JDS74]

Taping any part of the mask vent area will increase the amount of carbon dioxide he rebreathes and may be harmful to his health. The mask and the vent are designed to make sure that an adequate amount of his exhaled breath is removed before he breathes in again.

Please don't do that or let him do it.

Old masks do leak more than new ones so by all means get a new mask and try to get another so he has one as a backup. My mask tore last night and then began to leak quite a bit. Fortunately I have spares so I just switched out and went back to sleep.