When I die

This may be upsetting for some people but being 78 and using my CPAP machine every night I have been wondering what my family would find if I died during the night while using the CPAP machine,would it switch off or would it keep pumping air into my dead body until I blew up like a balloon,don’t know who could know the answer to this question? .

Mau1 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 2:00 am

This may be upsetting for some people but being 78 and using my CPAP machine every night I have been wondering what my family would find if I died during the night while using the CPAP machine,would it switch off or would it keep pumping air into my dead body until I blew up like a balloon,don’t know who could know the answer to this question? .

Good question.

If you were using the Auto Start/Stop feature, the machine would stop when you stop breathing.

Mau1 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 2:00 am

would it keep pumping air into my dead body until I blew up like a balloon...

There's never enough pressure to "blow up like a balloon". At most your cheeks would get a little puffy.

If you are on an S/T of some sort with a Back-Up Rate it would continue to ventilate. If your heart was still beating (like a stroke where you were brain dead) you could go on like that for days until dehydration caused your heart to stop, Even then the machine would be merrily pumping away until someone came in and turned it off. It could probably go on for years despite the mask components (and you) rotting away.

Are you renting the unit? Probably not a bad idea to have them check on you every week so you don't end up getting charged when you're dead.

Although I guess it would be the estate that would be getting charged. But that bill could probably be easily challenged, you being dead and all...

They would find you with your CPAP machine still running.

The machine would *not* turn off, even if Smart Start was turned on. Smart Start doesn't monitor breathing as an indicator of when to turn off, it monitors leaks. A sustained leak it what turns a mcahine off. And no, you wouldn't blow up like a balloon, there simply isn't enough pressure.

Anybody analyzing your Oscar chart would see one huge, honking apnea starting at the time of death. I'm guessing it would be flagged as a CA.

Passing, while wearing CPAP would kind of be very uneventful.

Dog Slobber wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:26 am

Passing, while wearing CPAP would kind of be very uneventful.

But he'd be doing what he loved!

Dog Slobber wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:26 am

They would find you with your CPAP machine still running.

And probably at max pressure, which still isn't enough to blow you up like a balloon.

loggerhead12 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:48 am

And probably at max pressure...

I don't believe so even if he was on APAP (stressing the importance of including machine and settings information!).

But let's say he was Sense10 APAP. The machine would FOT but since pressure increases only after the event is completed (defined as resumption of breathing effort)(but dead is defined as that ain't gonna happen) it would simply stay in endless FOT.

Hoping for an inflated reputation?

loggerhead12 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:48 am

Dog Slobber wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:26 am

They would find you with your CPAP machine still running.

And probably at max pressure, which still isn't enough to blow you up like a balloon.

Probably not, for the reason Rubicon stated, plus it would likely be flagged as a central. CPAPs don't respond to centrals by increasing pressure.

Mau1 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 2:00 am

I have been wondering what my family would find if I died during the night

A dead moron?

JPB

Dog Slobber wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:08 am

Probably not, for the reason Rubicon stated, plus it would likely be flagged as a central. CPAPs don't respond to centrals by increasing pressure.

Wouldn't death be the ultimate flow limitation?

loggerhead12 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:43 am

Dog Slobber wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:08 am

Probably not, for the reason Rubicon stated, plus it would likely be flagged as a central. CPAPs don't respond to centrals by increasing pressure.

Wouldn't death be the ultimate flow limitation?

It would be the ultimate central apnea.

Without flow, there can be no flow limitation.

The good news is that AHI = 1.0.

Rubicon wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:38 am

The good news is that AHI = 1.0.

And then Uncle Nicko would read the SleepHQ chart with the single huge Apnea, but AHI of 1.0 and state, "G'day Mate. Your AHI is well under 5, so you're doing great! Legend"

Any attempts at correcting him, by pointing out the patient's dead, would result in your SleepHQ forum account being banned, with a message about "another toxic sock-puppet member of CPAPTalk."

Dog Slobber wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 22, 2023 12:04 pm

message about "another toxic sock-puppet member of CPAPTalk."

More information, please, on what I have to do here to reach the sock-puppet status, because that sounds really cool--or at least cooler than my present wooden-puppet status.

TIA.

My understanding based on what I've read is that people with untreated moderate-to-severe OSA have an increased likelihood of dying from cardiac causes while asleep but that people successfully treating their sleep-disordered breathing are more likely to die when awake than when asleep, like everyone else.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15788497/

I don't think there is much to shock the system and cause an event during sleep when breathing is normalized, other than maybe a particularly stressful nightmare. On the other hand, the act of waking up puts real stress on body systems as do other stressful events and circumstances during the day. I still choose to wake up and live my day as best I can, whenever possible.

Sedation of someone in the end-stages of an illness would likely change the awake/asleep odds, of course. But other than that, people tend to have accidents and life-threatening circumstances while awake, for the most part. So I would adjust my worries (oops, I mean "concerns") to the medical odds.

That's only in the context of so-called natural causes, though. If someone hits me over the head while I'm asleep, I just have to hope the person has the common decency to turn off my machine and remove the mask for me afterward. Perhaps I should leave a glow-in-the-dark note on my forehead stating that wish as a reminder to any who may be considering that sort of thing.

Hey, just me.