CPAPtalk.com

Hi, Canadian, first time poster, long time lurker (few months). Last night I did my second sleep test, this time with CPAP. I was using a Dreamwear FFM which is my normal mask. I’m posting because since I woke up this morning my left ear feels blocked or like the pressure is off in my middle ear.

The pressures I experienced during the sleep study were the highest I’ve ever experienced apart from mask fittings. My normal pressures are 5-12, I feel like they had me higher than that for sure. Has anyone else ever experienced ear problems from CPAP pressures being too high? Unfortunately I didn’t notice how bad it was to ask at the sleep lab before I left. It’s been about 20 hours now and I’m still blocked with ringing and I can’t handle loud noise at all. No pain, just profound discomfort.

I did some searches and came up empty for other people having a similar experience... how normal is it for a sleep study/ CPAP to blow out your ears??! I don’t know why they would increase the pressure so high. Looking at OSCAR I do hit the high end of 10-12 most nights but my AHI is 0.5 on average so what where they doing?

Even at a much higher pressure setting it's doubtful that the CPAP could "blow out your ears."

My ASV blows to 25 it does not blow out my ears but I did get some strange effects poor hearing etc until I got used to the pressure and my Eustation Tube cleared up nothing worse than I can get blocked at times with a cold

Okay, so it’s probably not a symptom of the pressure level — that’s good. More likely my eustachian tube was irritated by the change and swelled shut (like with a cold). Hopefully time and antihistamines will fix it.