Enlgarged heart and CPAP

I went to my congenital cardiologist at Duke yesterday and got some bad news. My heart is enlarged and not pumping as well as it should, which will lead to congestive heart failure and surgery quicker than we had anticipated. They did a blood test that will confirm the amount of BNP and the actual severity of the reduced pumping capacity. The doc told me that I should have experienced shortness of breath as a side effect of the changes.

What kind of changes should I expect with my CPAP? Could that be explaining some of the problems getting everything dialed in on my pressures? I guess I should have asked yesterday but was in such shock I couldn't think of anything to ask. I know that many things with the heart can influence CPAP and visa-versa but does anyone have any experience with this?

sleep apnea is hard on the heart so if you have it, a CPAP will be kind to your heart

You must have missed this one......only a couple of days ago.....

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45963&p=412116


Den

My heart has enlarged since I started my CPAP therapy.

I'm very sorry to hear about that news, tvmangum. But at least you and your Duke cardiologist are now aware of some health changes that need to be addressed. You asked whether your heart problem may have caused your difficulty "dialing in" CPAP. My own opinion in April was "yes" and my opinion right now is still "yes". I would strongly suggest reviewing the two Resmedica newsletters I linked to in these posts from your April thread:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40963&st=0&sk=t&sd= ... 30#p359711
-and-
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40963&st=0&sk=t&sd= ... 45#p359739

In retrospect, your erratic AHI sounds an awful lot like the CPAP experience heart patient Phil Lovell encountered (see second newsletter). This is only my opinion, but I think your new sleep doctor gave a heart patient VERY BAD advice when he recommended that you simply ignore your AHI spikes as if everything was okay:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45819&p=410687#p410687

Dr. C said as long as I was using the machine and following orders the machine will do what it is designed to do--keep me alive! He also told me that the at home titrations were of no use because they really do not provide useable information. He also told me to ignore the numbers on my machine.

I'd suggest showing that sleep doctor a copy of the Resmedica newsletter so that he can understand why heart patients like you and Phil Lovell should NOT ignore home-measured AHI spikes. I hope your sleep doctor thinks twice before telling another heart patient to ignore their machine data.