Can CPAP cause COPD?

Do a little reading on the forum, Yamdigger.

You'll find people who have left the lab with pressure too high - and fixed it on their own.

You'll find people who have left the lab with pressure too low - and fixed it on their own.

You'll find people who have left the lab with Rxs for machines that report no breathing data, so their doctor has no way of knowing why their therapy isn't working.

You'll find people who have bought their own fully data capable machine and have taught their doctor a thing or two.

You'll find people who have excellent knowledgeable doctors.

You'll find people whose doctors are ignorant.

People can die of too much insulin. That doesn't keep their doctor's from prescribing insulin pumps, or telling the nurse (ha!) to teach them how to measure their blood sugar level. On the contrary.

The more knowledgeable the patient, the better off he or she will be.

The fact that some doctors have no time (and some have no willingness) to teach their patients does not mean that is the way things should be run.

O.

Allright already!!! Let's not get so sensitive here!!! I'm simply putting this forward as a suggestion why her x-ray diagnosis might be what it is. I never said my suggestion was infalable. I simply quoted someone who has allot more training than me in these things. Yes, he could well be wrong too. But then again, he might also be right.

And besides, if setting the pressure was such a harmless act, why would the machines be made in such a way that we wouldn't immediately figure out how to get into the clinician settings...which I've already done myself?

My initial titration had my pressure set at 15. I started on straight CPAP like that with a bare bones machine. I discovered cpaptalk, went back for an auto machine, then lobbied again for an auto bipap. I took my data reports to the doctor after a year, had a second titration (a bi-level titration) which showed that my auto bipap was exactly right at 9-12. When the pressure went to 13 it woke me up.

Neither titration showed any centrals, and my machine has never shown a non-responsive apnea. I think that might indicate I don't have centrals, at least not a significant number of them.

The doctor really got on his soapbox about the x-ray not being the way to diagnose COPD. Still, it doesn't rule it out either. He did say that a person could have mild or even moderate COPD without symptoms.

Here's something about "pressure induced centrals" from an RRT (Registered Respiratory Therapist) and RPSGT (Registered Polysomnogram Technologist) and manager of a fully accredited sleep lab:


From his post on page 2 at:
viewtopic.php?t=14225


The phenomena of pressure-induced central apneas is tossed around far too freely. The vast majority of people do not get centrals because of ultra-therapeutic CPAP levels. BiLevel, Pressure Support (PSV) and Proportional Assist (PAV) Ventilation are another matter. You need some mechanism to drive the pCO2 below the sleeping apneic threshold, and plain old CPAP rarely is able to do that. OK, if you wanna argue that CPAP increases base lung volume (Functional Residual Capacity)(FRC), and since that increases gas exchange, some people can generate centrals that way, fine. But it's not as many as you might think.
SAG

SAG is "StillAnotherGuest" on this message board; "sleepydave" on another board.

yamdigger's RT was correct about the possibility of higher pressure bringing on centrals.

I've also read posts by sleep techs and RTs discussing what I'd call temporary centrals that might pop up during a cpap titration when the pressure is raised. Those not being a problem at all because they subside as the body gets used to the change in pressure during a sleep lab titration.

As StillAnotherGuest pointed out, "pressure induced centrals" just doesn't happen to as many as you might think.

Of course, the "if you wanna argue" part in SAG's post, and catnapper's lung xray report stating (in part) "The lungs are hyperexpanded", might make her one of the "not as many."
If that report was even correct.

Happily, her pulmonologist apparently doesn't think she has COPD, and told her:
the only way to diagnose COPD is with the Pulmonary Function Test. He said there is no correlation between the results of a chest x-ray and COPD.

So he wrote a prescription for me to have the test at my convenience. He apparently did not think there was any urgency.


This is a little off track from discussion of COPD, but here are some interesting discussion topics about central apneas:
Links to Central Apnea
viewtopic.php?p=22702

Hey Catnapper-

Did you get that Pulmonary Function Test yet?

Make sure you get the complete report, including the values for "Functional Residual Capacity", "Residual Volume" and the "Flow-Volume Loops".

SAG

I am convinced that my copd is the result of useing cpap for the last 3 years..... I know of 6 people that have been diagnosed with copd in the last year or so and the all use CPAP..... This is a topic that needs to be looked into by FDA ... The fact is that they go hand in hand......

This is just nonsense medically - why don't you Google some research and start reading, maybe starting with -

http://www.researchgate.net/publication ... table_COPD

Just curious and not meaning to be confrontational, but do all your friends smoke, or were they smokers at some time?