Swallowing air at prescribed pressure-ok to reduce?

Been using my CPAP for a little over a month. I'm having troubles with swallowing air at night at the pressure recommended for me:10. The gas pain the next day is terrible- Is there any harm in dialing down the pressure if the AHI incidents seem to remain low- under 1.0? I went down to 7 a couple of nights ago, and the gassyness seems less.. Any downside? I see my doc for the first follow up appointment in a couple of weeks. Thanks.

Use the forum search bar for "aerophagia", which is very common...

PattyMN wrote:Been using my CPAP for a little over a month. I'm having troubles with swallowing air at night at the pressure recommended for me:10. The gas pain the next day is terrible- Is there any harm in dialing down the pressure if the AHI incidents seem to remain low- under 1.0? I went down to 7 a couple of nights ago, and the gassyness seems less.. Any downside? I see my doc for the first follow up appointment in a couple of weeks. Thanks.

Sounds like you're in tune to watching your numbers. I don't know that I'd have made such a large drop right away, but was your AHI good that night? Some people are willing to accept a bit higher AHI in order to reduce side effects of higher pressure. Can be a bit of a balancing act. I'd say as long as you're in tune with your data it is better to use it at a lower pressure than not be able to use it due to air in the belly. You might try some other basic things to help like making sure you don't back sleep and or allow your head/chin to fall forward and maybe compromise your airway. Most studies try to capture your worst case scenario. If you can sleep in your best case case scenario it's reasonable to think a lower pressure could be effective.

Thanks so much for the reassurance. The gas pain was bad enough that I went to the ER- dropping to 7 was a desperation move. So far, I'm around .7 AHI or so, at the lower pressure, and no gas pain, or "bloat" (ugh) as they call it in the ER.