What does the "Pressure Relief" setting?

[Ihaveapnea]

What are the benefits of having "pressure relief" turned on? What's the downside of having it turned on? Thanks in advance.

[trish6hundred]

Hi Ihaveapnea,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
Hang in there for answers to your questions and good luck to you with your CPAP therapy.

[Ihaveapnea]

Thanks, I just realized there is a typo in the subject line. How do I delete this post?

[justMongo]

Well, you cannot delete a post. There's really no reason to delete; the question is clear.
Pressure relief is the lowering of PAP pressure on exhale. It's mostly a comfort feature.
There are some people who feels it's too difficult to exhale against the full machine pressure;
So EPR drops the pressure a cm or two.

Downside can be the induction of Clear airway apnea for some.
The EPR can cause more carbon dioxide to be expelled on exhale;
During sleep, the brain initiates a breath based on CO₂ levels.

[Ihaveapnea]

Thanks very much, is there a chance that having this setting enabled is actually causing me to wake up?

[Mr. Van Winkle]

Well for me I needed to set my EPR to 3 which is the most relief when I exhale,
when I started I'd wake up because if felt like I was going to explode from not exhaling. Every breath was going in but it felt like nothing going out (drowning in air).
After I adjusted the EPR setting it helped me quite a bit , It can take a few weeks to get use to your new sleeping patterns.
This board has many helpful people that will help you quite a bit, be patient and keep asking those questions.
Good luck and ....

[Ihaveapnea]

okay, thank you very much.

[kwhenrykerr]

I get less mask leaks having "pressure relief" turned on.