Does anyone else feel a huge relief after taking the mask off after a while?

[70sSanO]

Well, there is one member who can't tolerate pressures above 6 cm without problems. I'm the same for pressures above 11 cm. It's different for different people. Inability to tolerate might be a feeling, it might be aerophagia, or it might be an elevated CA index.

Can you expand on that last part? 

I learned recently that CA (central apnea) causes shortness of breath upon awakening, which is EXACTLY what I often feel. I don't understand what mechanism behind CA can possibly cause someone to CONTINUE to struggle to breathe after waking up. I'm able to find ZERO information online.

Its like my breathing becomes different when waking up. I go to bed like a normal person and wake up not being able to breathe properly with the mask anymore.

I have central sleep apnea.  The quick and dirty explanation is that your brain decides it isn’t going to breathe.

I don’t remember it specifically waking up, but there were times when going asleep, I’d end up having to take off my mask and was gasping for air.  It did not happen often, but it was pretty nerve wracking when it did.  I’d look at my AHI and it would be in double digits, all centrals.

I ended up with an ASV machine and so far no issues, but it has been less than a month.

John

[SarcasticDave94]

Well, there is one member who can't tolerate pressures above 6 cm without problems. I'm the same for pressures above 11 cm. It's different for different people. Inability to tolerate might be a feeling, it might be aerophagia, or it might be an elevated CA index.

Can you expand on that last part? 

I learned recently that CA (central apnea) causes shortness of breath upon awakening, which is EXACTLY what I often feel. I don't understand what mechanism behind CA can possibly cause someone to CONTINUE to struggle to breathe after waking up. I'm able to find ZERO information online.

Its like my breathing becomes different when waking up. I go to bed like a normal person and wake up not being able to breathe properly with the mask anymore.

I would say CA didn't cause shortness of breath, but some other cause would be the culprit. As we know, CA, as in Central Apnea, is caused by an imbalance in pulmonary receptors transmitting improperly that we don't need to breathe yet to dump off carbon dioxide.

Possibly the reason you cannot find on the web a direct link between CA and struggling to breathe after waking is because it's that there's another, likely medical, reason. I deal with shortness of breath, and I also deal with CA. My shortness of breath cause is COPD. And no I'm not saying you have COPD, that's just an example. But there is something else going on that one of your doctors will need to find and diagnose.

And we do breathe very differently while awake vs sleeping. Sleep breathing is far more "automated" and typically has a fairly constant rhythm, whereas awake breathing has lots more randomness thrown in. That's unless there's some thing modifying that normal, in this case, again it's probably medically based.

PS one of my indicators of the presence of CA would be the oxygen deprived headache AKA morning headache.