Respiratory effort?

When I saw the post on increasing co2 to increase respiratory effort, it reminded me of the long ago when I first started on CPAP, someone in the medical field, don't remember who, was concerned that eventually my lungs would get lazy from not having to work so hard. Is there any basis in fact for this?

No - it's nonsense. Seriously!

herefishy wrote:When I saw the post on increasing co2 to increase respiratory effort, it reminded me of the long ago when I first started on CPAP, someone in the medical field, don't remember who, was concerned that eventually my lungs would get lazy from not having to work so hard. Is there any basis in fact for this?

That can happen in newborns on ventilators. Their brains and lungs just never "learn" to breathe on their own. Lots of medical people are sort of scared of ventilators because of that.

The consensus is that it doesn't happen with CPAP. One difference is that CPAP doesn't breathe for you, it increases pressure in your airway to keep your airway from collapses. You still have to breathe in and breathe out against the pressure. It doesn't seem to happen to the thousands of multi-year CPAP users. Also, you only use the CPAP while sleeping. You'll be breathing without CPAP 16 hours a day or so.

I wonder if anything bad would happen if someone wore CPAP 24/7.

Like if they were in a coma?

Even if they were, it doesn't mean they wouldn't breathe on their own... that only happens in certain cases and that's when a ventilator's used.

Google "ventilator dependency" for further discussion.

However, dependency does NOT happen with CPAP. Well, other than not being able to sleep without it once you get used to not being strangled in your sleep.