co2 washout - unstable breathing causing fatigue, lethargy and cognitive symptoms

[Jwicks1995]

It's been quite sometime now trying to become accustomed to a CPAP machine. Tried many machines, many pressure settings, epr etc you name it. I believe I have quite unstable breathing and cpap, whilst eliminating all apneas - may be making my breathing patterns worse. I believe this is causing me to washout too much co2 out of my system. This may explain the weird cognitive and fatigue symptoms I get whenever I spend a night on CPAP. Whenever I do not use it they dissapear entirely, leaving me simply with my usual apnea like symptoms which are unfortunately much more manageable than how using CPAP leaves me. All my stats seem to look fine. AHI never over 1 and thats about it. I'm thinking of looking into EERS in order to stabilize my breathing pattern. Perhaps even a Bipap. However I will have to go through many hoops in order to gain access to a rental which is quite annoying. Otherwise, I'm not sure how to else to cure what is going on.

Does anyone have any suggestions or information on co2 washout // Hyperventilation?? Also, I've tried and had access to many sleeping medications that kill anxiety dead, and even using these it doesn't make any difference. I'll do anything to make cpap work

Screen Shot 2021-02-01 at 7.35.16 pm.png (479.64 KiB) Viewed 442 times

Screen Shot 2021-02-01 at 7.35.06 pm.png (470.75 KiB) Viewed 442 times

[rick blaine]

Hi Jwicks1995,

The normal clinical way to determine if you have unstable breathing is for a doctor to put you on a spirometer. At a pinch, you might also be able to form an opinion by zooming in on your flow rate.

A senior chest medicine physician told me that, while most people have a normal sinus rhythm in their breathing, about 10 per cent don't. (I happen to be one of them.) But, as I understand it, that alone does not make excess CO2 breathing out inevitable, although it may make it more likely.

What I do note is that your minute vent is a tad high in the second chart – the 'normal' for a male of average height and build is 6 litres per minute. There are a couple of mechanical possibilities, which you may have tried. But the simplest and easiest thing you could try to see if there's a reduction in CO2 blow-off would be to sleep less. That is, see how you do with only eight hours sleep a night.

As to meds – I'd stay well clear of any meds that depress breathing while asleep. Too risky. The medical world is seeing a rash of serious sleep depression due to long-term morphines.

One other thing: you don't say how old you are, but total lung capacity reaches a peak at around 35, and starts to decline thereafter. The likelihood of over-breathing declines after that, although it does not disappear entirely.

As for treating anxiety in a non-drug way, you might look up a newly-developed method called 'Havening'. It is usually taught by a trained practitioner, but it can be self-applied. You can find 'how to' videos on YouTube.

[Miss Emerita]

Could you say more about what leads you to think you have unstable breathing and too much CO2 washout?

Small matter: when you next post a chart, could you close the calendar and turn off the pie chart, then stack your graphs this way:

Events
Flow rate
Pressure
Leaks
Flow limitations
Snores.

You can squeeze all of those into one screen shot by grabbing the horizontal gray bars that separate the graphs and pushing them up a bit.