Posted by Greg Harper on May 11, 1998 at 07:50:09:

In Reply to: Re: Problemsexhaling wih C-PAP machine posted by Asghar shah on May 10, 1998 at 17:35:11:

Asghar:

It is hard to tell if the problem is from CO2 because there can be so many different causes for headaches. However, morning headache in someone with sleep apnea can be reason for concern.

My first question is about the onset of the headaches. Do they occur every morning or just the past 3 days? If the problem is of recent onset
it may be more difficult to tell if CO2 is the problem. Especially if you have given auto-adjusting a three month trial.

Or, is it that you tried the Sullivan V Plus for three months and then recently switched to the Virtuoso? In this case it might be easy to figure out.

The second question that I have is about the "baseline" pressure on the Virtuoso... What is it set at? Is it close to 12 cmH2O? If it is not at
10 or 12 cmH2O you may need to increase the baseline pressure. Especially if you have tried lower pressure settings and found that you
still snore. Many sleep technicians report that it is more difficult to treat snoring than it is to get rid of obstructive apneas.

To be honest, I'm a little skeptical about the performance of the Virtuoso. It did not done well in auto-titrating comparison trial among
different devices in a respected published journal (Sleep, April 1998, 249.B).

It is possible that your machine is not responding well to your apneas and that is why you are waking up with headaches in the morning. But this is just a theory.

Let me know what your "baseline" pressure is set at.

Gregory Harper, RRT, RCP

Respiratory Care Practitioner

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