AirSense 10 Loses Pressure

I’m only about 3 weeks into the CPAP world and am using a ResMed AirSense 10 machine.

I’ve noticed what seem to be two major issues that make me believe I have a defective machine.

The first is that I’ve awakened several times with the machine blowing so much air that it’s literally lifting the mask off my face and causing my cheeks to flap around and my ears to pop from the excessive pressure. It’s like there’s just too much air. This doesn’t happen every night, but when it does it’s very disconcerting. My doc says it’s just a seal issue and basically discounted my concern

Then tonight I was having trouble sleeping and realized that it was because I wasn’t getting enough air. Both inhaling and exhaling felt like I was trying to suck air in and out through a straw. Half awake I turned the machine off for a few minutes then started it again. At first it worked fine - no air supply issues. Then as it began to ramp up after about 20 minutes I began to notice that the machine was slowly and gradually cutting off my air supply - to the point where there was so much resistance to inhaling and exhaling that I felt if it continued I was going to suffocate from lack of air. I pulled the mask off gasping for air. It was actually scary.

This appears to be much more than simply a mask sealing issue. It’s seens to be a problem with the machine itself.

Anyone have any ideas as to why my AirSense 10 is trying to kill me?

Hi decaharms,

I had that sensation one night with a Resmed 9 but I thought that it was because of the number and length of extension cords and 4 gangs that I was using to power the machine. At the time we were staying in a caravan connected to a shed that was some distance from the main house. It hasn't occurred since so I can't make a real diagnosis.

The starting point would be to determine what the minimum and maximum pressure that your machine is set for. There is also a ramp start pressure which is the very first pressure you get when you turn it on. All of those are displayed when the machine first comes on, and can be redisplayed by just pressing the round button. What are these pressures? Your minimum might be too low, and your maximum perhaps too high.

Not getting enough air as you describe may be a mask problem. What kind of mask are you using?

Another option is to take the machine back to the sleep clinic and use it there so they can see what is going on.

Biguglygremlin's comments reminded me that my wife had a power adapter fail on her. It caused the machine to turn off multiple times during the night. It turned out to be an intermittent connection in one of the molded plugs. I eventually figured it out by wiggling each plug connection until I found the one that caused the power to the machine to go off. The ResMed supplier immediately shipped a replacement to us.