5 Common CPAP Side Effects, Problems, and Solutions

five common cpap side effects problems and solutions hi i'm chris with affinityhm.com and i'm coming at you here from my bedroom was just getting ready to go to bed and i wanted to come out here to you guys and talk about what i know that each and every one of you need to hear is the most common side effects and problems and solutions for your cpap so you may be new on cpap you may have used cpap for many many years but you're going to see that these are the ones that uh if you're especially new on cpap that you really need to find some solutions and find them quick so we're going to go through the five uh common cpap side effects problems and solutions we're gonna start with what i think is probably the the least common of the five although it's very very common uh the very first one would be and this is actually shown up more over the most more recent years is number of weight awakenings so you're waking up a lot because of the fact that you're using your cpap machine so this can be from because of some of the other problems that you're having that we're about to go over or what the reason that i'm seeing this one more and more i think is because so many more people are are on a very wide range of pressure now with the machines that we have today the apap the auto positive airway pressure machines they automatically adjust so if you're having a sleep study and maybe it's a sleep study at home uh that that you're having and the doctor is just simply ordering a pressure a wide range of pressure like let's say four to twenty well that means that the machine is going to all the way through the night be looking for your pressure it's going to be trying to find if you have an apnea is going to adjust if you have a hypomia it's going to adjust and sometimes these adjustments that the machine is making actually wake you up so what i would encourage you to do is if you do have a very wide range of pressure over over a period of time along with your doctor try to to see if you can narrow those pressures via looking at the report so the report tells you what pressure you run at most of the time even though your machine may be set four to twenty your most common pressures uh sorry sorry about the dollars but your more common pressure may actually be let's say ten and then you can through your doctor's prescription have that changed to 8 to 12 for example and then there aren't as many uh changes now another thing to keep in mind is that as we get older let's say we're over 50 years old it's just common to wake up so you may wake up just because you're in the older age bracket and uh you know as long as you're able to go back to sleep it's perfectly fine and normal it's the it's a problem really only if you're waking up and then unable to go back to sleep so that's uh that's number five is awakenings so adjust the pressure try to narrow that gap and then also just know that it's normal to wake up also you know if you don't drink as much a couple of hours before you go to bed obviously you don't have to use the restroom as many times so that could be helpful all right let's move on to number four number four is eye irritation i've seen some pictures in our facebook group group cpap for beginners of people really puffy eyes and problems with with eye irritation eye dryness this almost always is someone that's using a full face mask a mask over your nose and mouth and likely it's not actually sized correctly or it just may be the shape of your nose if it's not sized correctly obviously you need to get the correct size have that looked at again have them actually use a size meter or gauge to determine uh when you're using a sizing gauge and we do have those on our website that you can print out cut it out on paper and then it will show you you want the top part of the gauge to be right here where the lowest portion you know where it sort of drops right there in between your your eyes that's the top part of the gauge the bottom part of the gauge is under your lip right here where it drops the lowest so you're just measuring this distance from here to here to determine do you need a small medium or large full face mask so that's number one make sure it's the correct size mask otherwise you're going to just have a little bit it doesn't even take much air leakage but just a little bit of leakage coming out right here will actually cause a lot of air to irritate the eyes cause some swelling puffiness etc another solution for that with the eye irritation is possibly you just simply uh could try nasal pillows you know that or or even a hybrid type of mask that's the nasal pillows and the full face but trying different things is really important so that might be the solution is to just try a hybrid mask or nasal nasal pillows so let's move on to number three number three i hear a lot is dry mouth so people who have dry mouth that's happening likely because you may only have a nasal mask or nasal pillows and your mouth is actually coming open while you sleep at night now that that's more of a problem beyond just the dry mouth because if your mouth is coming open while you're trying to use cpap then obviously what's going to happen is the air goes in your nose it goes right out your mouth and it completely dries out your mouth but even beyond that you're no longer getting the pressure where you need it so not only do you have a dry mouth if your mouth's coming open but you're also wasting your time trying to use cpap because there's no pressure the point of cpap is to apply and maintain a pressure in your airway that will keep your airway open um even while you're you're trying to sleep now some solutions for dry mouth is uh i think one the first and most obvious is if your mouth is coming open while you're sleeping you've got to keep it closed or use a full face mask over your nose and over your mouth so if you have just a nasal mask or nasal pillows your mouth's coming open possibly just use a full face mask instead or if you don't want to use a full face mask try a chin strap so a chin strap is simply you can still use the nasal apparatus put the chin strap on and that will keep your mouth closed and by the way a lot of people do use chin straps along with full face mask and that's fine too uh the point is really you have to sort of try different things and think through different things and and solutions for yourself all right number two this is a huge side effect that people do see it's called aerophagia it simply means air in your stomach so the trachea it when you're using your cpap and the air pressure is coming in we want it to go into your airway and into your lungs however we do not want that air to go into your esophagus so swallowing air is something that some people do through the night while using cpap and as you're swallowing that air it's just going into your stomach getting trapped in there it can cause some problems it can cause pain in the stomach uh even pain in the chest area it can obviously cause you know gas and different problems such as that we want the air to stay in the trachea and in the airway and in the lungs and really neck position is very important so if you're if your neck is down like this then you're more likely to have the air go into your trachea so some people you actually use a soft collar a soft collar uh like people would use after a car crash you know with the neck problems and that will maintain your neck in the proper position uh then sometimes moving the pillow and adjusting the pillow in the proper place can actually make a difference in this aerophagia another solution is possibly if along with the doctor changing the prescription for a lower cpap pressure if that is feasible often that's not feasible but um but you got to figure something out and if if none of those solutions work then bipap so bipap is just an opportunity to a machine that can change the pressure higher pressure when you're inspiring and a lower pressure when you're exhaling and every time you take a breath the pressure of the machine changes and this actually makes a huge difference not only in compliance overall it can reduce aerophagia it can reduce mask leaks bipap is a really good solution for many of the problems that you're having so check with your doctor if you're having a lot of problems and you've struggled through cpap talk to your doctor about it because perhaps bipap is is a potential solution for you and then number one i bet you guys who have used cpap for a long time can answer the question of what the number one most common problem is it actually is mask leaks mask leaks are often the culprit the problem with cpap and mask leaks is one that is probably the hardest to overcome as well mask leaks can happen through so many different problems uh size of mask type of mask style of mask the way you sleep do you sleep on your back your stomach your side or do you sleep on all of the above mask leaks is something that really just through your provider talk to them explain to them what the problem is that you're having and often an experienced provider will be able to help you with that and i'm here by the way you can see on our website i have an item in the website to where you can contact me you actually schedule a phone conversation with me and i'd be more than happy to try to solve some problems with you so check that out on affinityhm.com if you would type in comments what your problem is that you're having i'd like to try to answer that or perhaps some others can join us on facebook we have a really awesome group over there it's called cpap for beginners and i'd love to see you over there in that group we're having a good time answering questions and supporting people who are having problems with their cpap so if you would please subscribe to this channel if you're watching on youtube like the page if you're watching on facebook and i appreciate you guys being here tonight and i hope you have a wonderful evening and it's time to go to bed here so uh so good night everybody y'all have a good night bye see you soon

Channel: AffinityHM

Views: 602,123

Keywords: #affinityhm, cpap, side effects, cpap side effects, cpap reviews, cpap problems, AffinityHM, sleep apnea machine, cpap machine, cpap mask, continuous positive airway pressure (medical treatment), cpap advice

Id: TycTjfvp7GM

Length: 11min 17sec (677 seconds)

Published: Fri May 13 2022