BiPap - Severe bloating no matter what I do

Hello,

I have been struggling with this issue for several months now since I started therapy. Im either waking up in the morning with severe painful bloating or its waking me up in the middle of the night which causes me to not be able to use the machine due to the discomfort. I have tried all different combinations of settings, sleeping positions, sleeping at an incline, different pillows, different masks (full face, nasal, etc) but nothing has helped. If I lower the pressure too much it makes it not as bad but then I have a lot of apnea events.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am unsure what else to try. I have attached the OSCAR results from the last 3 nights below

https://imgur.com/eplkkls
https://imgur.com/29Tw4Dn
https://imgur.com/m9SxJaU

Exchanged wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 26, 2024 11:41 am

I have attached the OSCAR results from the last 3 nights below

Didn't show up.

See this
viewtopic/t183806/Attachment-storage-is ... MENTS.html

Ops. Uploaded to imgur. Thank you!

https://imgur.com/eplkkls
https://imgur.com/29Tw4Dn
https://imgur.com/m9SxJaU

In your effort to include so many graphs you have made them so tiny they really aren't useful.

See this thread
http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t1585 ... eview.html
for examples in what to try to include. We don't need or want all those graphs.

Are these your settings?
EPAP minimum 9
PS 4
IPAP maximum 14

can you share a report where you lowered the pressure settings but then had your AHI increase?
Did the lowering of the pressures let the aerophagia problem go away?

i'll let pugsy take you through the technical stuff. I just want to mention that you may have accept the higher ahi until your body gets used to higher pressure. for me, I found a place that was comfortable, then I slowly increased pressure. it took me a very long time,but I got there in the end.

this was on a resmed machine which is technically a bilevel. you say bipap, which NOT resmed. not just being finicky here; with a resmed, you can increase pressure in .2 increments, which makes it easier to tolerate pressure changes.

in any event, good luck!

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 26, 2024 12:34 pm

In your effort to include so many graphs you have made them so tiny they really aren't useful.

See this thread
http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t1585 ... eview.html
for examples in what to try to include. We don't need or want all those graphs.

Are these your settings?
EPAP minimum 9
PS 4
IPAP maximum 14

can you share a report where you lowered the pressure settings but then had your AHI increase?
Did the lowering of the pressures let the aerophagia problem go away?

Sorry about the trouble. I am very new to this. Appreciate your patience and help. I have fixed the screenshots of the OSCAR data.

Those are the settings, yes. I have been adjusting them slightly however to try and find ones that do not cause the bloat and pain

Unfortunately, I dont have one with lower settings and high AHI. It was before I had an SD card

It helped it not be as severe but did not completely eliminate the issue

UPDATED SCREENSHOTS:
https://imgur.com/eplkkls
https://imgur.com/29Tw4Dn
https://imgur.com/m9SxJaU

zonker wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 26, 2024 3:47 pm

i'll let pugsy take you through the technical stuff. I just want to mention that you may have accept the higher ahi until your body gets used to higher pressure. for me, I found a place that was comfortable, then I slowly increased pressure. it took me a very long time,but I got there in the end.

this was on a resmed machine which is technically a bilevel. you say bipap, which NOT resmed. not just being finicky here; with a resmed, you can increase pressure in .2 increments, which makes it easier to tolerate pressure changes.

in any event, good luck!

Thank you for your response! It has been several months now with no changes and it actually seemed to have gotten worse. How long did it take to adjust for you.

ResMed AirCurve BiPAP 10 VAuto - this is the machine I am on. This may have been incorrect in what I stated

Okay....let's back up a bit and try to figure out if it is the EPAP or IPAP causing the aerophagia (or maybe both)

Try these settings....

Minimum EPAP at 7
PS of 4
Max IPAP 12

Report back tomorrow with results and also if any effect on the bloating.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 26, 2024 5:06 pm

Okay....let's back up a bit and try to figure out if it is the EPAP or IPAP causing the aerophagia (or maybe both)

Try these settings....

Minimum EPAP at 7
PS of 4
Max IPAP 12

Report back tomorrow with results and also if any effect on the bloating.

Last night with the following settings
Minimum EPAP at 7
PS of 4
Max IPAP 12

https://imgur.com/tpnP7h8

I woke up a few times throughout the night randomly. Then woke up this morning with a pretty bad headache. Almost feels like my oxygen may have been low. I've had that issue in the past even when AHI is very low. I have a pulse OX that tracks all night I can wear that going forward.

Aerophagia was not bad at all! Which was awesome. It was like a 2-3/10 when usually its a 7-8/10 so definitely a big improvement there

Thank you for all your help with this, genuinely means a lot

A very acceptable report......both from symptom relief and an unremarkable AHI or detailed report.

Dig out that pulse ox and see what it says. I doubt seriously if your O2 levels were/are low at these settings at least from the OSA side of things. Simply not enough events to cause desats. Now you could be having desats but I just don't see OSA as the cause and of course lots of other things can cause desats besides OSA related stuff.

Exchanged wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 26, 2024 4:58 pm

Thank you for your response! It has been several months now with no changes and it actually seemed to have gotten worse. How long did it take to adjust for you.

ResMed AirCurve BiPAP 10 VAuto - this is the machine I am on. This may have been incorrect in what I stated

literally weeks. I would change UP .2, then back down if it didn't work. if it DID, I kept at it for a few nights to let my body get used to it. one of the keys to treating sleep apnea is patience. it was hard, but it paid off. it may not be so hard for you.

but, please, don't become distracted by my blithering. pay close attention to pugsy. she gets to the meat and potatoes of the matter.

good luck!

oh and just by the way? you're on a bilevel. same principle, different name but it can help in the future if you decide to Google some stuff.

zonker wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 27, 2024 11:36 am

Exchanged wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 26, 2024 4:58 pm

Thank you for your response! It has been several months now with no changes and it actually seemed to have gotten worse. How long did it take to adjust for you.

ResMed AirCurve BiPAP 10 VAuto - this is the machine I am on. This may have been incorrect in what I stated

literally weeks. I would change UP .2, then back down if it didn't work. if it DID, I kept at it for a few nights to let my body get used to it. one of the keys to treating sleep apnea is patience. it was hard, but it paid off. it may not be so hard for you.

but, please, don't become distracted by my blithering. pay close attention to pugsy. she gets to the meat and potatoes of the matter.

good luck!

oh and just by the way? you're on a bilevel. same principle, different name but it can help in the future if you decide to Google some stuff.

Appreciate all the info and help! I will definitely be doing this

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 27, 2024 7:32 am

A very acceptable report......both from symptom relief and an unremarkable AHI or detailed report.

Dig out that pulse ox and see what it says. I doubt seriously if your O2 levels were/are low at these settings at least from the OSA side of things. Simply not enough events to cause desats. Now you could be having desats but I just don't see OSA as the cause and of course lots of other things can cause desats besides OSA related stuff.

Hi! Here are my results from last night. This is the issue I was having with the lower pressures, while the machine is showing 0 events my oxygen is fluctuating all over. I only sleep about 2-3 hours before I yanked the mask off in my sleep and fell asleep without it on.

OSCAR : https://imgur.com/Hq1phAu
PULSE OX REPORT: https://imgur.com/AHhWiNG
https://imgur.com/B3PMLhx

Unsure of what is causing this. Have been trying to figure it out for months. Is there any setting I could adjust that would help?

The only thing different I didn't mention is I have the "trigger" setting on very high as anything lower I was having significantly higher events

So last night's O2 report is when you took the mask off and slept without cpap?

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 28, 2024 6:09 pm

So last night's O2 report is when you took the mask off and slept without cpap?

No, the O2 report is with cpap