First night with CPAP - Waking to exhale

[becksmycat]

Hello all,

I am a CPAP newbie and tried my device for the first time last night and it wasn't easy. I found multiple times throughout the night I was woken by the need to urgently exhale a lot of air. One time I woke up and my mouth was full of air. It made sleeping really difficult as it woke me up with a jolt, setting my heart racing and so took a while to calm myself down afterwards.

It felt as if I had breathed in as much as I possibly could and my body had woken me to urgently breath out.

I also at one point I think started trying to talk in my sleep, which again woke me.

I'm using a nose mask.

Has anyone else experienced this? Or do you have any advice?

[Julie]

What are your pressure settings? What machine (full name) are you using? Do you use the ramp and for how long?

[Guest]

It's a resemed airsense 10 elite, and the technician did set it to ramp, I think for about twenty minutes.

He hospital didn't want me to adjust the pressure settings so he didn't show me how to locate that.

It was provided by the the UK NHS (National Health Service)

[Pugsy]

You need to know about your machine's features and settings even if you don't go changing anything.
See the manual.
https://sleep.tnet.com/home/files/resme ... -guide.pdf

One time I woke up and my mouth was full of air.

This is quite common...we call it chipmunk cheeks or puffer fish syndrome. The air going up the nose and down the airway enters the mouth and tries to exit via the mouth but the lips are closed so the cheeks inflate.
It's been discussed a lot here on the forum along with various methods to prevent. Do a search for it and you can read some past discussions.
It takes some practice closing the back of the mouth/throat so that the air doesn't enter the mouth but it can be done for most people.

First night's on cpap can be tough...it's a big adjustment.
Maybe use your machine for an hour or so while awake reading or watching TV so you begin to feel more comfortable with it and trust it.

[becksmycat]

Thank you for the link, and the advice. I'm glad it isn't just me.

I'll search the forum for those two terms.

[SteveA]

Yes, indeed I've done a total of 4 nights now. Here's some (rambling?) comments from fellow newbie:

I've sleep two nights with the full face mask, one with just the two nostril plugs, one with the little mask the goes over the nose (all resmed masks supplied by my doctor for the at home test). I've found issues adapting to all of them, though I've found the full face mask easiest to get used to to start with. I've always been a bit of a mouth breather since my sinuses tend to clog up at night.

That being said, the nose/nostril masks seem to make the most sense in terms of not snoring (a big issue for my wife , but neither nostril mask had an "escape valve" so that when I breathed out through my nose it felt like I had my nose plugged. IE it was way harder than usual to breath out, so I tended to naturally open my mouth and breath out. But then, of course, I tended to occasionally just mouth breath instead. When I tried to just use my nose I woke up often, pulling the nose mask off and breathing out my mouth. I'm told, and it makes some sense, that having my sinus' clogs probably makes it worse (it might help to sleep more inclined so my sinus' don't fill up - also I'm fiddling with the humidifier temp/settings to find one that works best). The nose masks make me feel like I'm filling up my lungs like an over tight balloon and I can't exhale without letting it go out my nose.

I am also looking for a nose mask with a better exhaust valve (maybe the one I had was stuck or I just rolled onto my side and jammed it against the pillow making the valve no work?)

I used the full face mask last night and it feels the best to my lungs and psyche in general. But since snoring is a big part of the issue, I really want to get better at the nose mask. I'm thinking I may get a nose mask and try using that for a few hours at nightm, then switch to the face mask to see if I can adapt?