Aerophagia

When I started using cpap four years ago I had a lot of problems with aerophagia. I tried different settings (I have the Dreamstation and use Swift FX), many different masks, and different sleeping positions. I found that laying flat on my back and using straight cpap setting of 8.5 kept it at bay. Until now. I haven't changed anything, but suddenly I'm waking up with terrible gas and nausea that lasts at least until noon, and sometimes all day. Does anyone have any insights as to what could be wrong, and advice on what I can do? Thank you!

I don't know what could have suddenly caused this, and I'm suffering from the same issue.

Temporarily, taking Tums helps with the nausea if it is caused by gas in your stomach, and GAS-X helps a bit with intestinal gas.

Someone on this forum and I think maybe the wiki said that GERD (reflux) can make aerophagia worse (your esophageal sphincter doesn't work as well with GERD and air can more easily go down into your stomach). I have GERD, and there are certain foods that trigger it. Trigger foods are different for each person (my worst ones are garlic and heavy amounts of onion, or especially salsa even though I can eat other spicy foods just fine).

Maybe think about if you have made any dietary changes recently or are eating/drinking a lot of a particular food or beverage. I don't know if you might have GERD, but you can have it without noticing any symptoms, without the telltale heartburn or acid in your throat. You might want to experiment with consuming very different foods and drinks for a few weeks and see if it helps. I would look especially closely at any food or beverage that you've started consuming (or increased quantity of) in the last 3-6 months. Often it is just one food you might need to eliminate. There is a long list of known GERD triggering foods but I wouldn't go by that list, there are too many of them and it would be overwhelming to try to avoid all of those. I can consume many GERD foods with no problems, such as caffeine and coffee, tomato, pepper and hot spices, alcohol, etc.. I had terrible GERD for 6 months (I had to sleep sitting up in a chair and couldn't even bend over to brush my teeth without heartburn), and it was mostly caused by eating garlic and salsa. My GERD problem slowly healed over the course of about six months after I eliminated those foods.

For GERD, it is also good to avoid eating too closely to bedtime, and avoid chocolate and caffeine at night.

My aerophagia is back and now I'm thinking about my diet changes. I did start having (one and a half) sandwiches every day for lunch about 3-4 months ago which was a change for me. So maybe that is the problem, I may unfortunately have to switch to soup or something else to see if it helps.

Lots of people have changed their food/drinks a couple months ago due to Covid-19, since not going to restaurants, fast food, or groceries stores as often has led to a change in habits.