Operating altitude of S9 Auto

[archangle]

You could end up with a pile of altitude-induced central apneas and/or periodic breathing.

BTW, I Sludge's point should be emphasized. You can develop central apnea at higher altitude even if the machine blows the correct pressure.

I don't have a good gut feel for whether this is just a minor effect or serious. Or how often it happens to CPAPers. Or even if non-apneacs develop central apnea at altitude.

[BlackSpinner]

You could end up with a pile of altitude-induced central apneas and/or periodic breathing.

BTW, I Sludge's point should be emphasized. You can develop central apnea at higher altitude even if the machine blows the correct pressure.

I don't have a good gut feel for whether this is just a minor effect or serious. Or how often it happens to CPAPers. Or even if non-apneacs develop central apnea at altitude.

Which is all the more reason to get your data and learn to adjust your machine. If you were a diabetic you would have learned all the ways to read and control your insulin levels.

[Pugsy]

I don't have a good gut feel for whether this is just a minor effect or serious. Or how often it happens to CPAPers. Or even if non-apneacs develop central apnea at altitude.

I had the chance to go camping at altitude last weekend and I wondered about this altitude and central thing myself.
Full electric was available so it wasn't roughing it camping but I was at around 10,000 feet for 2 nights.
Used my PR S1 BiPap auto model 760.
Clear airway index was only 0.23 and 0.32 for the 2 nights. Essentially centrals didn't materialize. 7 plus hours of sleep both nights.
AHI overall was a wee bit more than usual at around 2.0 but that was because some dummy had forgotten to change her machine settings so they were a wee bit suboptimal. Snores were pretty ugly.
I slept well and felt great though.

[igdoc]

You could end up with a pile of altitude-induced central apneas and/or periodic breathing.

BTW, I Sludge's point should be emphasized. You can develop central apnea at higher altitude even if the machine blows the correct pressure.

I don't have a good gut feel for whether this is just a minor effect or serious. Or how often it happens to CPAPers. Or even if non-apneacs develop central apnea at altitude.

At higher altitudes everyone (not just CPaPers) becomes more sensitive to central apneas. This is likely to be related to the lower Oxygen levels inducing relative hyperventilation in turn lowering the Carbon Dioxide levels and potentially causing Cheynes Stokes respiration similar to that seen in Complex Sleep Apnea. The higher the altitude, the higher the proportion of people who are affected. An excellent article on the subject set in the Rocky Mountains http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... .6.610.pdf
Ian