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Could PAP be affected by elevation?
#1
Could PAP be affected by elevation?
Our primary home is at sea level. When we go to our cabin (elevation 2500 feet), it seems that I have to inhale harder to get the air I need. I increased the pressure by 1, and it seemed to have helped. Could it be that the thinner air at elevation doesn't provide enough oxygen? Or is this all imagined? Curious to ask the experts for their opinions.
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#2
RE: Could PAP be affected by elevation?
Pretty much all PAP machines, yours included, adapt for altitude.
Yes altitude affects your breathing, and there is a thing called altitude induced Central Apnea.
BUT, typically those effects don't show until 5-6000 ft.

Please post charts from both home an cabin for evaluation. We have see cases where the user used a normal CPAP at home and needed an ASV at altitude. So you could need different settings based on altitude.
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#3
RE: Could PAP be affected by elevation?
All CPAP machines use gage pressure, not absolute pressure. If we say, for example, the pressure is 10 cm of water, that is the difference between the pressure in your nose and the pressure in the room. This difference does not change when you change altitude. This is appropriate because the idea is to use pressure to keep the airway open.

Increasing altitude will reduce the density and therefore the amount of oxygen you are getting. It does not make sense to compensate for this with increased CPAP pressure. You would need to increase the CPAP pressure by about 70 to compensate for 2500 feet of altitude.

I suspect that the higher altitude made you more sensitive to a problem you also have at sea level. If increasing the pressure helped at 2500 feet, you should keep that setting at sea level. And the experts will want to see the Oscar charts.
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