Thinking of turning off the ramp thing

My machine is set for a 30 minute pressure ramp. However, when I first turn the machine on, I have trouble breathing, and feel that I have to breath more rapidly to get enough air, and it feels like this shortage of air is keeping me from getting to sleep faster. So I was wondering about the pro's and con's of just turning off the ramp thing, or possibly just making it less steep if I can do that. My current pressure is about 10cm, and that's fine when I wake up for some reason and can feel myself breathing at full pressure. I haven't tried it without the ramp, but I think that it might be better for getting to sleep, that I'd get to sleep faster without it.

Any thoughts from the more experienced about this? I could always just try it, but I wondered if I'm missing something here.

Thanks.

You are not missing anything...Your ramp is probably set to 4...you can increase it or shut it off. I think the majority of users turn off the ramp after a few weeks.

Yea, do it. It's like taking the training wheels off your first bicycle. Ramp is totally annoying to me. Just start to doze and the pressure ramps up again. At beginning pressure, it's wasn't enough to fully inflate my nasal mask. So each ramp up meant adjusting mask and headgear and wait for next ramp. Phooey. Use ramp ONLY if you really need it. It's a lot easier to fall asleep at full pressure from the beginning. MHO

It's simply a comfort feature and doesn't really affect your therapy beyond possibly helping you ease into sleep. You should consider the pros and cons in light of that:

Advantages:
- Eases you into the correct therapy pressures over an adjustable time period.
- Lets you partially or totally fall asleep before the pressures start automatically changing.
- Gives you some illusion of control.

Disadvantages:
- You won't know if your mask is adjusted correctly leakwise until you're half asleep, or not at all.
- You may suffer too low initial pressures, which some people find suffocating.
- Machine noise factors will increase as pressures increase.
- You may not achieve air splinting of the throat until the upper ramp pressures, ie you'll possibly snore.
- Gives you some illusion of control. (may be helpful or not, depending on your mindset)

You can either turn off / not use the ramp, or set it at a higher starting pressure. I know at 4, or even 6, I'd feel like somebody stuck my head in a plastic bag.

Just means you've gotten used to it

RogerSC wrote:My machine is set for a 30 minute pressure ramp. However, when I first turn the machine on, I have trouble breathing, and feel that I have to breath more rapidly to get enough air, and it feels like this shortage of air is keeping me from getting to sleep faster. So I was wondering about the pro's and con's of just turning off the ramp thing, or possibly just making it less steep if I can do that. My current pressure is about 10cm, and that's fine when I wake up for some reason and can feel myself breathing at full pressure. I haven't tried it without the ramp, but I think that it might be better for getting to sleep, that I'd get to sleep faster without it.

Any thoughts from the more experienced about this? I could always just try it, but I wondered if I'm missing something here.

Thanks.

I know what you mean about the ramp on the S9. I had mine set at 15 minutes for awhile, and it felt like I was trying to breath through a drinking straw. Then I turn it off totally, and it was too much air in my face at once (My pressure is set at 13 cm.). Now I have the ramp set at 5 minutes, and that works pretty well for me.

You really just need to experiment a little to find out what works best for you. Different strokes for different folks.

Just be be clear, you have a few options:

1. Leave it like it is
2. Reduce the ramp time to five minutes (or whatever you want)
3. Increase the starting ramp pressure to say 8cm H2O
4. Combine 2 & 3
5. Turn off the ramp feature

Thanks for all the good advice...I think that I'll try turning off the ramp then, and if that's fine I'm done. And tune from there.

I turned it off but I tried 5 minutes first on my apap.

Are you using it in apap mode or cpap mode?
If cpap mode, Try a 5 min ramp with a higher pressure. If its 4 (the default), try 6.
If auto mode, up the low end pressure one or so. If you have pressure graph, post it and others here might be able to give you better advice.
Also is the EPR on or off?

I turned mine off after the first week of cpap! It is pretty annoying.
Carrie

I still run with a 5 minute ramp. But I'm also debating doing without it.

The EPR setting seems to make more of a difference to my comfort level.

Ramps are for wusses