I've lost some weight and now I am awakened at night...

[Suzannahstan]

I've had CPAP for over 10 yrs on and off and this last one for about 8 mos. Recently, I've lost some weight and have been waking up at night feeling like my lungs are going to burst. Is this normal? I have to remove my mask and turn off my CPAP for awhile while my lungs sloooowly return to what feels like normal. Has anyone else had this happen?? I do have an appt with my lung doc next week but would like to know if anyone has any thoughts. Thank you!!! Suz

[cflame1]

have you tried running it on auto?

[Todzo]

I've had CPAP for over 10 yrs on and off and this last one for about 8 mos. Recently, I've lost some weight and have been waking up at night feeling like my lungs are going to burst. Is this normal? I have to remove my mask and turn off my CPAP for awhile while my lungs sloooowly return to what feels like normal. Has anyone else had this happen?? I do have an appt with my lung doc next week but would like to know if anyone has any thoughts. Thank you!!! Suz

Hi Suzannahstan!

The symptoms you name I have experienced in response to stress from a traumatic event.

I have seen the beginnings of those symptoms (the doctors call it ventilatory instability or unstable breathing) when I lost weight.

I have learned to download my data several times a week and identify flow patters which show unstable breathing. I can also identify obstruction. After taking several inches off my belt it was easier for the air to get in and cause unstable breathing. I lowered my pressure from 15 to 8 checking the results for at least a week at each setting. The process took over sixty days.

In spite of the lower pressure the stress increase as the anniversary of the traumatic event approached brought the unstable breathing back. I used EERS[1] as I did the year before.

When you breath a lot of air you wash out the amount of carbon dioxide you need in the blood to facilitate circulation and metabolism. This knocks some of the breathing sensors in a direction which makes you feel like you need to breath even more.

I have found eucapnic breathing techniques useful to recover from waking up breathing hard as you mention with great success. Lately I have taken to simply cover the vent and breath five or ten slow “low volume” breaths and then release the vent and continue to breath slow low volume breaths. As the circulation and metabolism return so to the crazy urge to breath too much also evaporates.

In the future they may have better ways to handle this[2].

Please do share the references with your doctors!

Thanks!

Todzo

[1]: Gilmartin G, McGeehan B, Vigneault K, Daly RW, Manento M, Weiss JW, Thomas RJ.
Treatment of positive airway pressure treatment-associated respiratory instability with enhanced expiratory rebreathing space (EERS).
Source: J Clin Sleep Med. 2010 Dec 15;6(6):529-38. Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21206741

[2]: Dynamic CO2 therapy in periodic breathing: a modeling study to determine optimal timing and dosage regimes
Yoseph Mebrate, Keith Willson, Charlotte H. Manisty, Resham Baruah, Jamil Mayet, Alun D. Hughes, Kim H. Parker and Darrel P. Francis
J Appl Physiol 107:696-706, 2009. First published 23 July 2009; doi: 10.1152/japplphysiol.90308.2008
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19628721

[JoshCallahan]

it could be now that you have lost some weight you do not need as much pressure. my machine the same as your is on auto set and i find that helps me as when they set it at one pressure i was uncomfortable as well.