Back Pain & Aerophagia

Hi All,
I posted a few months back that I thought I had found a missing link between testosterone and sleep but it turns out to be a red herring and it didn't help. Will try and make this as quick and simple as possible, need some help bad!

- On Cpap for about one year, stuck to it 100%. I;m a light sleeper and my sleep has been bad ever since I started. At first, getting used to mask and noise and constant wake ups, then I slowly increased pressure to prescription over months, as I did I think pressure changes in the night wake me up. So in summary, waking up roughly every 3 hours for the last year. Pressure before my experiment see below was 10 min to 12 max. Prescription is 10

- Problem is I am now for the last few weeks getting terrible mid back pain when I have my usual wake up after 3-4 hours sleep then I can't get back to sleep. Like other posts I've been reading religiously I thought bed, position, deeper sleep on Cpap (I wish) etc. but last night I did an experiment and knocked the pressure back to 8.5 (which I haven't had it at in a few months) Result - Much reduced back pain and less gas this morning

So I am pretty sure after my experiment the mid back pain is referred pain from gas. Interestingly when I had aerophagia a few months back it was classic stomach pain, but now I don't seem to get stomach pain, just back.

Problem is my AHI went up (still good compared to a lot of you at 0.9) but I felt it, headache and more sleep disturbances.

So basically I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I put my pressure up, back pain and higher AHI, light sleeper so feel even worse.

I feel like IF and big IF I could get 8 hours on CPAP i would feel wonderful, but i think before the back pain any small pressure change would wake me, or when I wake up naturally during the night, I am aware of the mask and pressure then feel way more awake and remember it.

I'm pretty well read and although I don't type many posts I've read a lot and I am out of ideas. I basically need deeper long sleep without back pain but seems to be impossible.

Best Regards a totally knackered Brit, who wished Cpap worked for him

Maybe try a compromise between 10 cm and 8.5 cm minimum????
It's not always AHI that is the guideline....we have to also factor in how we sleep and how we feel the next day.

Yeah I'll try tonight another 0.5cm and see if that makes me feel better without the back pain. I can imagine deep sleepers find immediate relief with CPAP but for us light sleepers no chance

Reducing it by 0.5cm has seemed to do the trick, always the simple solutions you miss.

Anyway another problem now, wonder if anyone has any ideas. I seem to be highly sensitive to events when they wake me up. For example the last two nights minor RERA events have woken me up (I matched the time to looking at my clock). Overall AHI is good 0.50 and nothing major. Problem is it seems to be that ANYTHING that wakes me up causes me to me more awake than if I wasn't using CPAP. Does that make sense?

I have a feeling that pre-cpap I slept through all this stuff but now either by reason that my sleep is undisturbed UNTIL i get an event it is then EXTRA distubring OR because when it awakes me, the CPAP itself makes me more alert, I'm not sure but either way it's sucking. I haven't had more than 3-4 hours sleep at once in a year then I normally snooze an hour wake up, snooze an hour wake up until morning.

Anyone experienced this or have any insights? Don't think there's anything I can do with pressure settings or mask anymore. Mask is quiet P10 and there were no spikes in pressure on these two nights. It remained at (tolerable for me 9.0) apart from the regular dreamstation pulse tests of 1.5cm up.

Any ideas gratefully received!

Hi marcusm,

Have you heard about our ancestors, with their 'first sleep' and 'second sleep'?

(You can look it up on the net. The BBC website has a piece on it.)

What I'm about to suggest is that even a confirmed light sleeper – which is what you say you are – has to have some kind of sleep curve or architecture. So that in the first four hours of how you sleep at present, the first 90 minutes contain – if you follow that curve – quite a deep plunge – even for you, a 'light' sleeper.

So make a feature of what you're presented with. Plan to wake up after four hours. Indeed, set your alarm for it. Then get up and do some light activities. Read an easy novel. Do some not-very-taxing paperwork. Some simple tidying.

Then, when it feels right, go back to bed – and aim for another four hours.

Your 'second sleep'.

Possibly, I'm suggesting, with its own sleep curve or architecture.

You said: "Any ideas." This is one.

marcusm wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 11, 2020 1:47 am

Reducing it by 0.5cm has seemed to do the trick, always the simple solutions you miss.

Anyway another problem now, wonder if anyone has any ideas. I seem to be highly sensitive to events when they wake me up. For example the last two nights minor RERA events have woken me up (I matched the time to looking at my clock). Overall AHI is good 0.50 and nothing major. Problem is it seems to be that ANYTHING that wakes me up causes me to me more awake than if I wasn't using CPAP. Does that make sense?

I have a feeling that pre-cpap I slept through all this stuff but now either by reason that my sleep is undisturbed UNTIL i get an event it is then EXTRA distubring OR because when it awakes me, the CPAP itself makes me more alert, I'm not sure but either way it's sucking. I haven't had more than 3-4 hours sleep at once in a year then I normally snooze an hour wake up, snooze an hour wake up until morning.

Anyone experienced this or have any insights? Don't think there's anything I can do with pressure settings or mask anymore. Mask is quiet P10 and there were no spikes in pressure on these two nights. It remained at (tolerable for me 9.0) apart from the regular dreamstation pulse tests of 1.5cm up.

Any ideas gratefully received!

It's normal to be awake or almost awake between sleep cycles, most people that think the "slept through the night" just don't remember the little wakeups.

marcusm wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 11, 2020 1:47 am

Reducing it by 0.5cm has seemed to do the trick, always the simple solutions you miss.

Anyway another problem now, wonder if anyone has any ideas. I seem to be highly sensitive to events when they wake me up. For example the last two nights minor RERA events have woken me up (I matched the time to looking at my clock). Overall AHI is good 0.50 and nothing major. Problem is it seems to be that ANYTHING that wakes me up causes me to me more awake than if I wasn't using CPAP. Does that make sense?

I have a feeling that pre-cpap I slept through all this stuff but now either by reason that my sleep is undisturbed UNTIL i get an event it is then EXTRA distubring OR because when it awakes me, the CPAP itself makes me more alert, I'm not sure but either way it's sucking. I haven't had more than 3-4 hours sleep at once in a year then I normally snooze an hour wake up, snooze an hour wake up until morning.

Anyone experienced this or have any insights? Don't think there's anything I can do with pressure settings or mask anymore. Mask is quiet P10 and there were no spikes in pressure on these two nights. It remained at (tolerable for me 9.0) apart from the regular dreamstation pulse tests of 1.5cm up.

Any ideas gratefully received!

for me, this happened early on in my therapy. but i found as i got more used to the whole setup, it started to abate. it makes sense.

never mind, just went back and saw you've been on this a year. so the newbie anxiety prolly isn't part of it. though you certainly could be more aware of the wake ups because you are on cpap and alert for any anomalies.

might i suggest googling "sleep hygiene" if you haven't already. i don't follow every bit on the list, but i've found things that have helped me considerable such as no coffee after 12pm and cutting back my wine intake and stopping 2 hours before lights out.

good luck!

Thanks very much for the replies, the first and second sleep theory is very interesting and I can see how I may be experiencing something like that. There's probably some truth in that everyone wakes up but I am more fixated on it as well, then sleep hygiene comes into the mix.

I'll do some more reading and see if I can make some adjustments, thanks for the help!

Oh, I had similar issues with back pain and disrupted sleep when I first started using it.

Have you considered getting a thorough evaluation from a sleep specialist or a physiotherapist? They might be able to provide personalized advice and strategies to address your specific concerns and improve your CPAP experience. I found https://valeoclinic.ca/ to be really helpful in addressing my sleep issues, so you might want to check them out for expert guidance.