Cpap Tension Headaches

Hi everyone,

I'm going to keep this short but I wanted to post a question here since my sleep doctor has been mostly unresponsive.

I noticed that since using the cpap for a minimum of 4 hours everyday, I have developed a tension headache that will not go away. last night I took a break from the cpap for the middle portion of the night, my tension headache seemed to have subsided so I decided to put the cpap back on. In the morning I woke up with again the terrible tension headache that just wont go away.

I have never in my life gotten tension headaches from regular sleeping (without cpap). They usually just come from say work related stress or a very bad night of insomnia.

This is really troubling me as I have slowly started to accept the cpap if only I didnt have this constant headache.

My data on the Philips dream mapper shows I am having more central apneas than before. Would this contribute to the headache? Am I using the right machine. I sometimes feel like I might need a ASV but I have no knowledge in this field and don't want to make assumptions. Should a regular apap help with central apneas?

4 hours a day is insufficient for decent treatment. You need to wear it every minute that you sleep. You also need to accept that this is the way you are going to sleep for the rest of your life. Get some therapy to deal with the change. Learn meditation or go running to deal with the stress.

As for the tension headaches, check that the head gear is not pressing on the back of your neck and that your mask is not on too tight.

You could be causing the tension headaches yourself, stressing about wearing that nasty thing at night. Worry and stress will cause you to have a tension headache too. Once you are comfortable using the therapy, you will wonder why you didn't do it sooner..... good sleep is a great stress reliever .
As Blackspinner said, use the machine all night, not for just four hours per night you will feel better for it.

If you had an actual problem with central Apnea, your doctor would not have put you on Cpap. A Cpap machine is not capable of controlling central apnea. What you are reading as central apneas are times when you stop breathing voluntarily, probably when you are awake, almost asleep, or dreaming.

Try doing what the other posters said, and stop sleeping without your machine. If you cannot do that now because of work, arrange to take Monday off, and start Friday night. If this is your plan, stop using your CPAP until then. You need to stop telling your brain that mask off = sleep. Plan for a light weekend in terms of responsibility (but definitely do something productive), and don't worry if you don't get enough sleep on Friday or Saturday night. Just make sure that you never sleep without your mask from Friday on.

Loosen the bottom strap of the mask at the back and/or put a thin layer of memory foam or fleece, etc. underneath it.

One of the things I learned about CPAP is that when we are fairly new to it we have no way to relate to much of anything that is happening. Our mind makes the best connection it can based on no experience. Your tension headaches may or may not be tension headaches and may be caused by CO2 retention or other CPAP related things.

I get centrals and was very frustrated that my Doc just kept telling me to ignore them. It seems that the Doc gets excited when you start having 10-20 centrals an hour and the 10-20 I was having a night just didn't rise to a level of concern. Turns out he was right and my sleeping problems, along with my CO2 retention, are looking like they are caused by something else (having more tests done)

How many centrals are you having per hour of sleep? Also if you are not comfortable with using the CPAP, my guess is that you might not be relaxing well at night and that could lead to headaches.

Until you get used to the feedback regarding CPAP you need to really look at what your body/mind is telling you is going on. For now may times it will get it wrong at first look. For example I was always feeling congested and it turned out to be the feeling of pressure in my nose from the air pressure and the closest I could come to what that was, was that I was congested.

Thanks for the advice everyone. The thing is when I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and I didn't have the cpap, I would not get the same kind of headaches I'm having now. Headaches are rare for me but when I get them they last weeks. So because I started to get headaches aftee I was finally wearing cpap everyday, I correlated it with being caused by the machine. I do not believe cpap if with the right settings or worn right will cause headaches. So I am asking if anyone had thoughts about how I'm using the cpap? I keep it in a drawer and I use the ramp setting starting at 5cm water pressure. Could there be poor air circulation in the drawer causing the clap to deliver poor air? I'm not very bright on the technicalities.

My centrals haven't gone up as high as yours. About 10 per night. If it wasn't for the central apnea appearing on my first sleepy study, I would have never gotten tested a second time for UARS. My doctor was very insistent I didn't have sleep apnea but I pleaded and said I got a second opinion reccomending another study. Turns out I did have sleep apnea. And so since then I've been very wary about how much my sleep doctor is looking into my situation. It sucks though because he is the only doctor in my network and neighborhood.

Just to make sure, I am not suggesting that the headaches are caused by anything other than CPAP, just that they might not be caused by tension.

RE: air circulation. It's very hard to get something air tight, air will find a way to get there. Somehow you are getting the power cord into the drawer and the hose out of the drawer, so unless you have drilled holes in the drawer the same size as those, you should have lots of room around them for air to flow. You "may" be picking up the smell of wood in your air flow and that "could" bother you at some level. Easy to figure out, take it out of the drawer for a night or two and see if the problem goes away.

Much of CPAP is trial and error, the pressure may need to be tweaked, but usually is set pretty well by the lab report.

Everything else is pretty personal on how it effects you and no lab or Doctor can figure that out. CPAP will change how you breathe and that will effect how you sleep.

Are you suing a humidifier? Heated hose? what settings? you may need more OR less humidity. Make small changes and see if you get better or worse.

Do you feel like you have to force air out when exhaling? You may need to change your pressure relief settings.

I use ramp and found that a good starting pressure is 5.6-5.8. 6.0 was too high and 5 seemed too low, and yes I am that sensitive.

I didn't notice if you have your equipment listed before I started typing and now I can't see if you do. If you don't please edit your profile so we can see what you are using. They are all different and have different features with different thing to change.

Hi, I added the settings i'm using into my signature.

I like the cpap in the drawer as it muffles a lot of the noise. My bf said the same thing that oxygen always finds a way into a room or in this case a drawer so even the tiniest cracks should be fine. But I am concerned as my therapist mentioned it was dangerous to keep the cpap in a drawer and it needs proper circulation to draw in air. Not sure how true that is in a scientific standpoint.

I have the machine on apap mode and on setting 3 for a-flex. I've played around with humidity, I generally use a 3 or 4. The only thing I know is sometimes I feel like i'm suffocating, and other times I dont feel like I am and I am not sure of the cause since my settings are generally the same. The only difference is that I play around with mask liners and opening and closing the drawer a little bit. If I go above 5.5, the noise really bothers me so I keep the min pressure on 5.5 and under

Most people feel like they suffocate at 5.5. The pressure level does not make a difference to the sound, most sound comes from you breathing.

Do not close the drawer when the machine is running. It needs more then cracks in furniture to work properly.

There are plenty of builds on the forum where they have built built boxes lined with mouse pads with openings for air to come in using large hoses.

the most noise is generally conducted noise and placing the machine on a folded towel will help isolate noise.
To get very technical for air flow you would have to look at the area of the air inlet and add up all the cracks/joints in the drawer surround to see if it can get enough air. If you just pull the drawer open a half inch it should be fine.

IIRC which I am really not sure, a 3 setting gives the most resistance to exhale, some people cannot tolerate pressure changes and others like me cannot tolerate exhaling into pressure.

The way I adjust things is to put the mask on and lay down, concentrating on what I am feeling. I then make a one step adjustment and see if I notice a difference. If it's better I try it one more step, looking for the sweet spot. Once I try sleeping with the changes I sometimes need to make a step back or further.

We all breathe slightly differently, I tend to inhale slowly when I sleep (over 3 seconds) and exhale quickly (about 1 second)

I can't tell you what changes to make. I would suggest that you do not change the main pressure settings unless you get really good advice or really know what you are doing.
However IMHO everything else is fair game and are comfort settings that you should adjust, including some on the clinicians menu's

lindalam89 wrote:a tension headache

What is a tension headache?

Hello i am having the same tension headaches you mentioned and the same case !! Did you solve your problem ? Notice my philips settings by lab are 7 to 11 , and whenever it gets above 10 i involuntarily in the middle of night wake up and remove it as it feels irritating and too much for me.

Reslan wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 10, 2020 11:31 pm

Hello i am having the same tension headaches you mentioned and the same case !! Did you solve your problem ? Notice my philips settings by lab are 7 to 11 , and whenever it gets above 10 i involuntarily in the middle of night wake up and remove it as it feels irritating and too much for me.

Hi Reslan... welcome to the Forum.

You posted on a FIVE year old thread. If you start your own thread more people will see it.