Anyone notice back pain on cpap?

I am trying my first cpap machine since being diagnosed with sleep apnea a week ago and noticed immediately that in the morning the mid to upper center of my back is achey and sore. Has anyone experienced this and been told why or what they can do to alleviate it? My supplier called today to follow up on how my first few days have been ( really good given that it is something you need to get used to ) and when I mentioned it he thought I might be sleeping differently now that I'm not as restless and therefore staying longer in a position that is not comfortable for my back. After only two nights I'm not sure that I buy this explanation. I would think you'ld build up stiffness over time, but maybe not. Anyone else experience this type of discomfort, and what did you do to fix the problem? Other than this I find it is working really well and I feel better rested than I have in over a year.
Jennifer

I was titrated with a high pressure. Exhaling against the consant pressure was hard on the lungs. Some folks can get used to it. I opted to buy myself an autopap which only delivers pressure required at the time and reduces for exhale and seldom goes as high as the titrated pressure (the greatest pressure and usually in the supine sleep position).
Glad you're feeling better. Stay with it...and read the forums for lots of info.
A heated humidifier helps, too. I've read that C-flex also helps with exhale, though I've never used it.

Hi JEN,

You mentioed in your post about mid back pain using your cpap. I too have experienced this - mine being in my lower rib section all around my torso. I have been on cpap (RemStar Pro w/C-Flex) for 5 weeks and have had this pain since day one. I usually get 6 hours of good sleep before the pain will wake me up. After I'm up and about the pain goes away. Talked to my doc about this yesterday but she's baffled to what it could be. We've decided to try a RemStar Auto machine to see if that might alievate the pain and allow me to get more than 6 hours of sleep.

I hope this helps you in knowing you're not alone. I hope someone else on this fourm has had the problem and has found a solution they would be willing to share.

Hi ,
I'm new to this website and I also was having terrible pain and soreness in the same area of my back which was very painful so I talked to my sleep doctor and he felt that it wasn't from my cpap machine BUT the pain and soreness got so bad I went and seen my family doctor and he couldn't find anything that was causing it either which drove me nuts! What has helped me is this instead of sleeping with one pillow at night I now use two and the pains have gone away thank goodness ! I don't know if this will help you also but you can give it a try and see if it helps you too . take care ...
Chinadoll

I had the same thing for the first couple of weeks. I honestly believe it was from sleeping on my back for extended periods, unlike my pre-pap days! Wasn't a problem after that time.

Your pain is very common for new PAP users.
I am surprised the docs were not familiar with this.

Old timers from other forums see this question come up.
Relax- I think it is due to the fact that you are getting very good sleep and relaxing- this causes stiffness.
Others may explain this better. It is very common and nothing to worry about.

goes away in a few days.

Well, I had IV medication for 7 hours and a lot of fluid on me. I thought this was the cause of the rib and funny upper back pain I had the last few nights trying to use the machine. I am sure the fluid didn't help, but I was a bit scared at first because I had chest pain too (but my ribs and sternum were tender).
Since I am not pioneer to pain, and have had rib pain before, I didn't attribute it to the cpap...but since I am sleeping different and all perhaps this is why.

Good informative post and thanks for those of you who have calmed our worries

Happy New Year
Chelle

I have been on CPAP just over a year now and I just started with the backpain a couple of weeks ago. I notice it mostly in the morning. I think it is from sleeping on my back. If I roll on my side or something it feels a bit better. but it takes a while to loosen up after I get up. I never slept on my back pre-CPAP. Besides my bed pretty much bites the big one as far as a mattress is concerned. I think a combo of things. It could be the onset of cold weather. We don't keep the temp above 65 these days in the house. who knows. I just hope it goes away.

JimH

About a week ago I had a fairly sharp intense pain on the right side, lower ribs. Felt like I had broken some ribs maybe. I blamed it on racquetball, which tends to stress just about everything. My wife the therapist applied hot and cold packs, massage, and taped it like it was a broken rib. The pain went away in a couple of days.

Today the pain is back, on the OTHER side. (Wife says, uh-huh, another backrub?) This week, no racquetball, it's closed for the holiday. So I'm looking for other excuses. Jumping over tall buildings? Now I'm thinking maybe it's how the lungs, pleural cavity, ribs, intercostal muscles, and all the miscellaneous stuff in between adapt to all this new air pressure. maybe? Is this part of the "growing pains" starting out on PAP therapy? I wouldn't've thought so until I saw the other posts (above) describing similar experiences. Maybe this is fairly common? I've been on APAP about 6 weeks. I expect the pain to go away, and I don't plan to do anything about it especially. (maybe another backrub? worth a try.)

Maybe we're onto something, with all these similar observations. Barotrauma is well studied and understood amongst divers. Typically the pressures involved in diving are MUCH higher. I have experienced similar pain after ascending rapidly froma a dive and not expelling air from the lungs fast enough. (In severe cases it can actually burst the lungs and cause a pneumothorax, which can be fatal.) The pressures involved in PAP therapy don't even come close. But who knows, maybe some of the unexplained pain might be from stretching the lungs and pleural cavity and surrounding tissues and muscles beyond their normal range.

I did a search on "ventilator induced barotrauma", there is a lot of information on that. Or "CPAP barotrauma", 21 hits on the respected PubMed, and about 10,400 on Google. Perhaps this is well-known. I'm still new to this.

Ric, you have made some interesting points. After I get a hopefully good night sleep I am gonna have to check out the cpap barotrauma stuff. I am glad to know I am not the only newbie having weird pain.

This site is a lifesaver

Happy New Year
Chelle

I've been having problems with back aches lately but haven't been able to determine what their cause is. I'm a "road warror", spend about 200 nights a year in hotel rooms. The hotel mattresses I've been sleeping on are much more comfortable than my own bed. Over the holidays I've been at home, and that's when the back aches started. My typical pattern is to go to sleep at 11:00 or so using the CPAP machine, wake at 4:30 with a back ache that prevents me from going back to sleep. I go downstairs, sit in a chair for a few minutes on the computer, then go back to sleep on the couch (without the CPAP machine) until 8:00 or so.

I have a Resmed S8 that I've been running in auto mode. It's been running at about "9". In my (fairly recent) sleep study I was prescribed at "7". I'm going to try the machine in CPAP mode at "7" to see if my back ache problem goes away. If all else fails, I hope to try a different mask or perhaps a different mattress.

I'm normally a stomach and side sleeper, but the mask I have now prevents me from switching to my stomach...that might be part of the problem, too.

It's so good to hear from others experiencing the upper back/chest pain. I've been using an auto pap machine since November/05, but it isn't going away. No one seems to know anything about this phenomenon and my physician said to try taking Tylenol before falling asleep (didn't help much). I've now switched to Robaxcet (OTC muscle relaxer) and this has helped somewhat, but still wake with diminished pain after 5/6 hours of sleeping on my side. I find if I then move to sleeping on my back, it helps. Everyone keeps saying it is just the muscles getting used to not moving about, but when should it stop??

I've had a similar experience to a number of those described here: pain in my mid- to upper back while on CPAP. For me, it didn't start till I had been on CPAP for several months. It began the night I first used my heated hose. It was so bad it'd wake me up, and often I couldn't get back to sleep. It would start getting better as soon as I got out of bed. And it went away when I stopped using CPAP for a week due to a cold. Since then I haven't had the intense pain, but I do wake up many mornings feeling stiff in the same area. The doctors didn't know why this would happen.

Seeing all these posts makes me think this has to be CPAP-related. My understanding of back pain and sleep has always been that sleeping soundly should cause your muscles to relax and decrease muscle soreness. I think the barotrauma idea is an interesting one. Anyone else experiencing this?

Interesting.

I've been on CPAP since September 1st and have been waking up very stiff-- especially the first few weeks.

At the end of my sleep study, they put me on the CPAP and got me on it at the right pressure. When I woke up after that, I was very stiff and my back hurt and it was hard to get up. My sleep tech remarked that this was common. Before CPAP at the study I moved around a lot during my sleep, in part because I was struggling to breathe. With CPAP, I was on my back and didn't move at all and slept very soundly.

She said the stiffness would probably go away eventually, but that it varies for people.

But some of you sound like it's more a chest pain than a back pain and I wonder if that isn't pressure related or humidity or something other than the usual stiffness. I'd be interested in hearing more reports and if anyone finds out anything more from doctors or research.

Any opinions on whether this would be solved by buying a Tempurpedic bed? I'm tired of waking up sore. I'm perilously close to spending big bucks on the Tempurpedic, but would feel a lot better about it if someone out there can tell me it solved their back pain.

Anyone?