waking up suddenly unable to breathe with BiPAP

[Kristina1]

This is hard to describe because Im so groggy when it happens. I sometimes wake up suddenly completely unable to breathe and the BiPAP mask (full face) is somehow blocking me, I claw it off of me (hard to do because it's secured with hooks) and finally I can breathe.

Im not sure if im aspirating on saliva, and then the bipap does not allow me to cough? or if something else is happening and the bipap is giving me the opposite pressure (forcing exhale when i need inhale) or what?? Or if it's my laryngospasms acting up in my sleep?

does anyone know? it's very terrifying when it happens and I can only breathe again when I get the mask off. im always so groggy from meds I cant really understand whats happening.

 

[KarenNWendyn]

I’ve had that happen a few times, and I think it’s because the machine was trying to initiate a new inhalation when I wasn’t finished exhaling my previous breath. So I felt like I was fighting the machine. Laurie helped me with my settings. For that particular problem, decreasing the backup rate and increasing the rise tune (length of time between machine-induced EPAP and IPAP cycles) helped my problem.

There may be other issues why people struggle with the machine. Hopefully Laurie and others will chime in.

 

[lgelb]

Hi, Kristina,

Looking at your settings, it may be time to take your "trigger" (that determines when the machine starts a new breath) off auto-trak (where it's sort of doing its own thing) and on more precise settings that you get to set when you take it off that setting. Especially because you are taking sedating drugs, your breathing may have become more shallow or irregular at times, and so the "trigger" is probably not kicking in when it should.

Your rise time is at the max.

I'll send you an email.

Best,
Laurie