Pneumothorax

Back to much lower pressures that are not fully therapeutic. I had a spontaneous pneumothorax about two weeks ago (week in the hospital with a chest tube, etc.) and my pulmonologist is prescribing much lower pressures to protect the injured lung. Because of the cap on max pressure (15 CmH2O), my lovely new DreamStation DS900 ASV has now been transformed into an AutoBiPap and no longer acts as a ventilator. AHI is all over the place.

This really sucks (pun intended.)

That must be discouraging but try to look at it as temporary while the lung re-seals. I will bet the pulmonologist will gradually start increasing it again after a while but very cautiously in your case. I know that patience is very hard for me in situations like this so I am sending positive thoughts along and hope that this is nothing more than a little bump in the road.

So sorry. I hope you heal quickly.

Thanks for the kind thoughts.
This is a difficult time for me.

It is unfortunate that there are several defects in the affected lung (called blebs) that may rupture if the pressure gets too high.
If that happens, I'll be back in the ER again, chest tube again, etc. Its a binary condition. .5 cmH2O below rupture pressure and all is well. Increase by another .5 cmH2O and it ruptures. The bad part is no one can tell what the threshold is so gradually increasing therapeutic pressure is like Russian Roulette.

I'll be seeing my pulmonologist in a couple of weeks to see what can be sorted out.
In the meantime, I have a very expensive AutoBiPap machine, the Respironics DS900 ASV w pulse-oximeter attachment installed.