blocking the exhale valve

[fredboy]

I have had some symptoms lately and it's been an every other day deal.
My graphs look fine. I can read them and its all good.
I was going nuts wondering what the variable was that caused a bad day (fatigue) Vs a good one

It also seemed to be affected by the last hours of sleeep if I could sneak an extra in
made a difference!

What I noticed this morning, in those last few hours was that I rolled over on my stomach, and MAY
have been blocking the exhale valve with my arm or a pillow etc

IF THATS true

What does that do?

Could that be the missing link to the puzzle??

[-tim]

You could try a different mask.

If you block the holes, your CO2 will go up and if your awake, you would feel like you need more air. Remember the body's "need to breath" is controlled by CO2 (carbon dioxide), not lack of O2 (oxygen).

I wonder why no mask seems to have an exhale tube with a non-return vale.

[Pugsy]

I know that I can tell a pretty substantial difference in how I feel if I can get an extra hour of sleep. Feel pretty good with 6 1/2 hours to 7 hours of sleep but when I can get 8 hours of sleep I feel much, much better.

Sometimes I have awakened to find my arm across the vent holes. I don't know if it was the CO20 build up that caused me to wake up or not. Perhaps. The body's natural response would be to open mouth and breath.
Though I suppose if someone did this repeatedly through the night and woke up often...then the fragmented sleep could potentially cause unrestorative sleep due to the awakenings more than any minor carbon dioxide build up.