People who say they feel like there suffocating at low cpap pressure

[chris94546]

I can never understand when people say they feel like they are suffocating if they use a pressure under 7. I mean, the machine even at 5, is blowing a hurricane either up your nose or in your face. It is forcing air in to your mouth and throat as opposed to still air without the machine. Please explain...

[ozij]

When a person describes what they're experiencing, there's no need to "explain".
The facts you state are correct - a CPAP's pressure is higher than the ambient pressure.
The other facts are also correct: for some people, once they start using CPAP a pressure of 7 feels not enough.
My guess is that this experience is more pronounced when they're using pressure relief (EPR). Which means pressure drops when they exhale - and yet, obstructive apneas happen at the end of an exhale. When the pressure is 7, EPR =3 gives you an exhale pressure of 4.

When I started therapy, 20 years ago (no pressure relief in those day) a pressure of 6 felt terrifying.

Posted by ozij, who is still banned, still using vpn, still ignored by cpaptalk's tech support (assuming such an antity exists...)

[Dog Slobber]

I can never understand when people say they feel like they are suffocating if they use a pressure under 7. I mean, the machine even at 5, is blowing a hurricane either up your nose or in your face. It is forcing air in to your mouth and throat as opposed to still air without the machine. Please explain...

No CPAP does not force air into your mouth. CPAP doest drive air into your mouth , the pressure it creates opens your airpassages allowing air to flow. And the "hurricane" your describing is high-flow that is experienced when one has a leak.

One of the properties that CPAP also does it it "limits" air flow. While CPAP blows air, trying to draw more air than the current set pressure is difficult because the fan creates resistant beyond that pressure amount.

[ChicagoGranny]

I mean, the machine even at 5, is blowing a hurricane either up your nose or in your face.

If that's your case, I suspect you are using a nasal-only interface while breathing through your mouth, or you are having major leaks.

A properly operating CPAP system does not "blow" air into the airway. It creates a pressure that splints the airway open.