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Re: Optimum pressure caveats, indeed!!

Posted by BigGuy on February 12, 2003 at 07:56:06:

In Reply to: Optimum pressure caveats, indeed!! posted by - Sleepy Coote on February 12, 2003 at 07:18:25:

I am not a professionaly at this by any means, but one hypothesis would be, the Auto-PAP (base on my understanding) sense obstructions and increases only when needed to "break through" the obstruction when it sense resistance, whereas CPAP pushes air down whether needed or not. My guess as to why a 10cm (or any other pressure setting) would be the same on either leads me to conclude the following:
1. AutoPAP senses OSA and pushes the "door" open only when needed, thereby reducing the use only to when it is necessary.
2. CPAP brings continuous pressure, allowing your "breathing muscles", i.e., diaphragm and throat to relax - in some people, perhaps this is enough to send a message to the brain that I have forced air (hence O2) being supplied by something else and I don't need to work at breathing myself.
3. Or - this may not be about OSA as much as it is about recieving enough volume of air into the lungs, perhaps forced air into the lungs sends a message to the brain that the breathing is not needed, therefore you aren't "pulling in" enough volume to keep your O2 saturation levels above 90-95%. It would be interesting to see an oximeter on both auto-pap and CPAP machines to see if your blood O2 levels are dropping on CPAP but not on auto-PAP.
4. I am no expert, so I am not sure if this hypothesis carrys any air (pun intended) - very interesting postulate an idea though, maybe others out there with Sleep Technician experience would know. I think it is not so much OSA as it is volumization of the lungs with air. One of the things that I learned is that those of use with larger middle sections (myself included) when we lay on our backs, the weight decreases our diaphragms ability to pull air in because there is less space to pull into with the weight pushing into our chest.


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