Hello Guest, Welcome to Apnea Board !
As a guest, you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use.
To post a message, you must create a free account using a valid email address.

or Create an Account


New Posts   Today's Posts

Cannabis treating central apneas?
#1
Cannabis treating central apneas?
If I have understood correctly, I have treatment-emergent central apneas caused by my APAP treatment. According to Oscar the CA is almost a steady 3 events / hour every night. It might fluctuate a little from 2,48/h to 3,8/h, but not once during my 7 months of treatment has it dropped below 2,48.

Yesterday evening I smoked some weed after a long long break. Looking at my data after night I was surprised to see my central events 0,47/h and overall AHI 1,11 which is my best score ever. It might be a once in a lifetime fluke, but there was nothing different about last night other than the weed. Obviously it's not yet statistically relevant, but I find it interesting nonetheless. I'll probably smoke this night and see if I get similar results. Has anyone else noticed anything like this?
Post Reply Post Reply
#2
RE: Cannabis treating central apneas?
To be honest...I can' think of a mechanism that would tie smoking pot to your CA's. Can you? I'm guessing it's random. Are you sure that you're not just looking for a good reason to smoke?
Anyway, I wonder if edibles might not be healthier and last longer while you sleep?

Speaking personally, I hate the brain fog hangover that pot gives me. That stuff stays in your system forever!
Post Reply Post Reply
#3
RE: Cannabis treating central apneas?
Getting high is clearly not a long term solution.

Most of your centrals appear to be post arousal (probably sleep transition centrals) and your sleep study commented on periodic breathing after changing position supporting the same (sleep transition centrals). If you minimize sleep disturbances will probably minimize CAs.

In looking through your other thread your leaks are consistently bad and appear to be mouth leaks, this is not helping your sleep quality. I would consider trying a full face mask as it appears you mouth breath at times.
Post Reply Post Reply
#4
RE: Cannabis treating central apneas?
To be honest, I don't even understand the mechanism of treatment-emergent central apneas, so no. I'm just genuinely curious. If I want to smoke, I don't feel the need to justify it. And I'm not intending to smoke often even if there was correlation as per you said, it makes me foggy and is not sustainable for long periods. This was just really out of character for my apneas so it stood out. 

Well I have one theory of the mechanism. I seem to get (or my machine misidentifies) central apneas when I am wide awake. Also I am a very restless sleeper and wake up often. So it could be that all those central apneas during night are from periods where I've woken up and weed just makes my sleep a lot more heavy. But this is just speculation.
Post Reply Post Reply
#5
RE: Cannabis treating central apneas?
Thanks.

Yes, I have large mouth leaks when sleeping. I had a septoplasty a few weeks ago so my nose gets really congested at times due to swelling after the surgery. Before the surgery I used a ffm, but subjectively it made my sleep worse due to being a lot more uncomfortable. Also my AHI was a lot higher back then and it had no effect on my subjective well being. Hopefully the leaks will stop once my nose is fully healed.
Post Reply Post Reply
#6
RE: Cannabis treating central apneas?
A few things about your CA:

With a CAHI of .46 in 6 or so hours, this is extremely minimal. What's not minimal? 95% leaks at 27.x and Max of 36.x. This needs addressed, CA don't need attention. When you get CA frequently at 5 CAHI or more, then we can talk.

Also, if you're awake it's not Apnea. Part of the medical definition on Apnea is that they happen when you're asleep. If you're not sleeping it's not.
INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEBSITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
Post Reply Post Reply
#7
RE: Cannabis treating central apneas?
Treatment emergent central apnea are caused by cpap more effectively washing out CO2 from your lungs than before you used cpap. CO2 is what drives respiratory effort so in some people the lower CO2 levels on cpap causes brain to think it doesn't need to breath. I don't think these are treatment emergent central apnea as looking through your other thread they don't appear to correlate to EPR (treatment emergent are usually noticeably worse with high EPR). If anything yours appeared to be worse at low pressures and are probably occurring in relation to an obstructive issue or just sleep disturbances in general. The higher pressure and EPR you use now seems to be giving you the best results so far supporting an obstructive issue being the main issue. 

I think these either are not real apnea or they are sleep transition apnea. As you mention you seem to get these "apnea" when awake and that is not possible because you can't have apnea when awake (although you can hold breath and these machines flag them as apnea because they think you are asleep). When you look at your data and these "apnea" you need to try to determine which ones are real to know if they are an issue or not. If they occur while you were obviously awake or post arousal breathing (high amplitude flow rate breathing) then they usually aren't real and are more likely you holding breath, changing position or something along those lines. Some people also have sleep transition apneas which are short centrals that occur as they fall back asleep. Although sleep transition apneas are real they often are not an issue. Your sleep study commented about periodic breathing after changing positions which supports a theory of being prone to sleep transition central apneas. 

The high could have affected you in a number of ways but the decrease in "central apnea" may or may not be indicative of the quality of sleep or breathing. Yes you had lower AHI but your flow rate and leak graphs still show signs of multiple arousals and mediocre sleep.
Post Reply Post Reply
#8
RE: Cannabis treating central apneas?
idk if/how cannabis affects ca. I've used it with declining results (over several years) to ease or at try to least sleep through periodic limb movements. along the way I've determined that cannabis in high dose dramatically reduces my blood pressure. my bp can be quite high in the morning, falling through the day, especially after physical activity. after imbibing, however, it can drop too far, like 62/42 a while back. just tossing it out there; no idea if bp & ca are remotely related. my first diagnosis was all ca, later becoming mixed at more than 70/hr. since starting both pap & cannabis, I don't get many ca events anymore, whether using asv or vauto, but that may be for a variety of reasons other than cannabis.
  Shy   I have no particular qualifications or expertise with respect to the apnea/cpap/sleep related content of my posts beyond my own user experiences and what I've learned from others on this site. Each of us bears the burden of evaluating the validity and applicability of what we read here before acting on it.  
 
Post Reply Post Reply
#9
RE: Cannabis treating central apneas?
Would this give new meaning to high Apnea?
INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEBSITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
Post Reply Post Reply
#10
RE: Cannabis treating central apneas?
Sorry, Ashwa, I came off as a bit judgmental. Of course you don't have to justify smoking any more than anyone has to justify having several glasses of wine over a long dinner. 

I suppose if you follow this out and real trend emerges, that might be something. One night's results don't really establish anything.

I've known people who use pot for falling asleep at night. Again, for myself, the hangover effects make this counterproductive--plus, I tend to get stimulated by pot.
Post Reply Post Reply


Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  please help me make sense of my central apneas p4ncaketim 26 570 3 hours ago
Last Post: p4ncaketim
  Central while on ASV Boodmaster 11 2,517 03-26-2024, 02:37 AM
Last Post: Boodmaster
  [Treatment] Clear airway / central apnea events -- causes and solutions? mitzvahtime 6 2,399 03-25-2024, 04:10 PM
Last Post: Jay51
  Fixing (CPAP-induced?) central apneas Franko39 17 859 03-21-2024, 11:26 PM
Last Post: Franko39
  Central Sleeping Apnea treatment ivan007 5 212 03-21-2024, 12:52 PM
Last Post: PeaceLoveAndPizza
  Central events while falling asleep michaelyu15 7 269 03-20-2024, 06:22 PM
Last Post: michaelyu15
  [Treatment] Having several Unclassified Apneas.... meatheadmd 7 306 03-19-2024, 07:54 AM
Last Post: Sleeprider


New Posts   Today's Posts


About Apnea Board

Apnea Board is an educational web site designed to empower Sleep Apnea patients.