A sick, nauseous cycle, help!

Last night, I went to bed with a Swift FX pillow fresh from the package. It took a short while to adjust it for leaks, but had no problems and went to bed. Ten minutes later, the pressure felt too high, so I immediately removed the pillow/headgear and rested my eyes for a bit. Big mistake. I ended up falling asleep without my mask and woke up about 5 hours later. I didn't feel groggy or felt like I choked from the lack of CPAP therapy, but I felt tired. I tried to hose up again, but experienced the same problem. I thought that maybe I had to adjust to the new pillow since it was brand new from the package. Since I was so sleepy, I kept falling asleep without the mask until I eventually woke up feeling nauseated. For some reason, I felt nauseated enough to vomit a good amount...that wasn't fun. I had no idea why I threw up. I either ate something bad for dinner or the lack of hosing up caused me to experience some acid reflux, if that makes any sense.

So there's the sick cycle. If I try to rest from being sleepy and nauseated, I'll end up falling asleep. If I fall asleep, I'll end up having OSA episodes and possibly throw up again. I tried to hose up one last time but putting on the nasal pillow made me feel queasy. When I initially woke up to vomit, I had heartburn and probably threw up 2-3 times during the whole episode. Also, I probably hosed up for no more than 20 minutes.

Can someone tell me what's going on? I've been very good with hosing up but have had similar problems (minus the vomiting) for the past week. I've been on aPAP therapy for about 2 months. I feel that not hosing up caused me to have acid reflux. I feel weak and a bit disoriented right now, so I apologize if any of this doesn't make sense.

Thanks,
Alex

Hi
I had food poisoning a couple of weeks ago, threw up in my mask....everytime I tried to hose up again I thought I was going to hurl again. So I unhosed (good word) and sort of slept in my recliner the rest of the night. I felt rather rocky next morning but once the nausea ended I was okay....must have gotten enough sleep in my recliner to get me through the day.
I have a question for you...you said your took the pillows right out of the new bag...did you not wash them before you put them on???????????? Who knows what was/is on them, even if they are sealed in a bag, I would never not wash them first. They are usually made in China and we all know the problems they have been having with cleanliness and contamination.
Hope you feel better soon.
Cheers
Nan

Hi Nan, thanks for responding. I did have a worse episode of food poisoning about six weeks ago, so I probably had a minor bout of it. Regarding the new nasal pillow, I didn't know what I was thinking, I figured that I would have a better seal by not washing it. My initial instinct was to wash it, I don't know where I went wrong, haha. I'm not totally sure if my vomiting was caused by food poisoning, but I'm going to play it extra safe with what I eat and prepping for CPAP therapy.

Hi - it's possible that the CO2 vent got blocked by bedding (but do check if in fact the little holes have been punched all the way through and you don't have a dud) which would make you feel sick.

Alex,
Is this the first time you have used the swift fx mask? or have you been using it all along and just put new pillows into it?

Julie, I don't think the CO2 vent is blocked, but I'll be sure to scrub the entire pillow before using it tonight. SleepingBear, this is my 2nd set of the SwiftFX pillow. I started with the MirageFX for the first 3 weeks I was diagnosed with OSA, but my doc switched me over to the SwiftFX, which I prefer.

On a related note, I'm suspecting that I've contracted some kind of foodborne illness. Once I got enough energy, I went out to get some bananas, ginger ale, and Gatorade to alleviate my nausea, but ended up vomiting again.

Hi again...

I hope you understood me - scrubbing the pillow won't help if it (or blankets) are covering the vent up - it's not about dust but a free place for the CO2 to go out to.

But I hope you feel better, whatever your bug is.

cubism_dream wrote:

So there's the sick cycle. If I try to rest from being sleepy and nauseated, I'll end up falling asleep. If I fall asleep, I'll end up having OSA episodes and possibly throw up again. feel weak and a bit disoriented right now, so I apologize if any of this doesn't make sense.

Hi

If you wore an oximeter with the alarm set to go off if you started to desaturate, then that should at least solve the above problem. You don't need one with data for the above, but one with data will prove more useful in the long term.

Here is a link to the basic one's - to give you an idea -

http://www.clinicalguard.com/digit-puls ... -c-25.html

but you will probably want to check out what is available in your own country.

cheers

Mars

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the continued responses and sorry for my late response...I have a very good reason. This is really funny. I've just re-read all the posts on this thread and I don't even remember writing any of it. It turned out I had another case of gastroenteritis (GE), but it was worse this time than the last. I actually just recovered today and started looking at this forum today. The GE was so bad and lasted all week, I did not remember most of anything that happened. I don't know if my memory lapses are from feeling ill and dehydrated or because I didn't hose up this past week while I was sick.

I thought about starting a new thread regarding sleep apnea and gastroenteritis, but I'll just continue on this one. It is very frustrating to wear the nasal pillow and suffer from nausea/retching/vomiting/etc. The strange thing is that when I wasn't using my SwiftFX, I actually had consistent, vivid dreams, which I haven't done in a long while, due to OSA. Despite that, I know that it's best for me to keep hosing up. I will be contacting my primary care physician regarding all of this because although I'm no longer experiencing GE symptoms, my gut literally feels funny. I think it's inflamed or irritated. So frustrating!

Sorry if I rambled, I just needed to vent! It's almost 7am. Time to get some sleep...

I find that if I set my minimum pressure just high enough to not show apneas on my results, I get a bit of stomach and throat problems that I think are reflux. Bumping up my minimum pressure a point or two seems to help.