Sleeping for 3-4 hours maximum

I'm in the middle of my 2nd week with CPAP, so I'm still in a mindset where I'm trying to get used to it and adjust.

I have yet to make it through a whole night of uninterrupted sleep. After maybe 4 hours I wake up and am alert. Then I enter a restless sporadic sleep for a couple hours. After 6-7 hours with the mask, I'm desperate for some luxuriously comfortable sleep and nap an hour or so mask-free through the snooze buttons.

Why am I waking up? Well, there are 2 immediate reasons that I notice. The first is that air is going into my stomach. When I wake up I have that feeling that I need to belch and my stomach is full. Of course it is impossible to belch with the mask on. Then as I'm trying to fall asleep again, I can feel air going down my throat from time to time. I originally suspected this happened when I tried to sleep on my side, but it might be related to my pillow height--when I use less pillows, more air goes down. Elevating my head reduces the amount of air, but it is less comfortable, to the point that I tweaked my neck and shoulder last week and was in some pain.

I have also woken myself up with ghost groan. What is ghost groan, you ask? It's a terrifying wheeze that comes from my chest. It happens once a night, that I notice at least, and as it is happening I can't seem to control it. Less a wheeze and more like a death rattle. Seriously, if I didn't know I myself was making the sound, I would call an exorcist. It's happened on 2 separate nights now, and I wonder if it happens more often but doesn't wake me up every time. I wake up and hear this noise, wonder what the hell is that, then I realize it is my own lungs, listen for a couple seconds as if I'm observing an external phenomenon and then it trails away.

I guess I'm wondering if that aerophagia is related to the eerie moan? And is the primary cause of aerophagia excessively high pressure?

That's an interesting sound you describe! I have woke up to a wheezing sound before, and assumed it was a hyponea trying to become an apnea, or else an apnea resolving. Have also woke to a very forceful exhalation, but nothing exactly as you describe. I just wanted to offer a general tip. Elevating the head by way of pillows can end up causing more trouble than it fixes. As you mentioned, it's rough on the neck. Also, if you slide or a pillow shifts, the neck could be crooked in a way that makes it even more difficult for the airway to be kept open. What I used to do to help with reflux and even with breathing was I rolled up a comforter and placed it across the head of the bed between the mattress and box springs. Just don't make it so high you slide down. But with the whole body on an incline, you don't have the neck issues. Hopefully comfort will help you sleep longer.

yes, and here is a youtube video on how to stop that air swallowing..

I know its very uncomfortable and disturbing..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL0GndbTrSE


Are there any other problems you have had with breathing?

Kongjie, what are your pressures?

I'm wondering if you might be having some gastric reflux? That may be why elevating your head helps. My reflux is much improved with CPAP (I get to lie flat for the first time in years!), but some others say it seems to exacerbate reflux for them.

Sometimes when I was having a lot of reflux (before CPAP) and it was irritating my lungs and asthma, I'd get that sort of deep moan in the lighter stages of my sleep. It's very weird!

You might try a foam wedge under your matterss or elevate the entire top half of your bed instead of straining your neck and back with pillows (Places like Bed Bath & Beyond sell a set of risers you can put under the frame on the head end of the bed).

Thanks for the replies.

Have to check my pressure when I get home. But I don't think it's reflux, as some years ago I was having some issues with that and know the feeling.

I think that video really hits the nail on the head. My preferred pillow arrangement is a buckwheat one and is pretty low. I'm just not sure if the solution will work for me, because as I noted a double or even triple pillow arrangement I used one night really screwed up my neck, shoulder and arm for several days. Maybe something more gradual would be less likely to tweak my neck but at the same time I fear it would not achieve the 45 degree cutoff angle the video was suggesting.

Anyway, it seems as though I have some pillow experimentation ahead of me...

be patient, you are doing better than many new CPAP users
air swallowing is common, you can sit up in bed and burp when half asleep

Little late replying, but when I had a follow-up visit with my ENT/sleep doctor I mentioned that the aerophagia had become a problem, so he wrote a prescription to have my pressure lowered. It was set at 16-19 and he changed that to 10-19. He noted that the lab where my titration done is rather aggressive with pressure.

Was quite ridiculous to have to go to Apria to have the pressure changed, I must say. This should be easily accessible by the user. There are many meds prescribed that could easily kill you if you took too many, and they let us handle that, so why not the CPAP machine settings? Ridiculous.

Anyway, the respiratory therapist also noted that the EPR was disabled on my machine, so she showed me how to change that and set it to "1" to start. It hasn't bothered me to date.

Several weeks in now I am getting more accustomed to the machine and average 6 to 6.5 hours of use per night. If the lower pressure helps me to eliminate aerophagia things could become rather nice, so fingers crossed.