“Do
you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define
you.”
- Thomas Jefferson (Third U.S. President – 1743 -1826)
To be a successful elite athlete, you need to be at your maximum performance on game day. You are required to be at your best and not tired and lethargic. By optimizing the settings on the machine, you can have a great night’s sleep every night so as to wake up feeling refreshed and energized. For those having side effects and issues using CPAP, should seriously consider changing to a Bilevel or BiPAP auto adjusting pressure machine. A comparison is at CPAP Vs Bilevel Settings Example.
- Thomas Jefferson (Third U.S. President – 1743 -1826)
To be a successful elite athlete, you need to be at your maximum performance on game day. You are required to be at your best and not tired and lethargic. By optimizing the settings on the machine, you can have a great night’s sleep every night so as to wake up feeling refreshed and energized. For those having side effects and issues using CPAP, should seriously consider changing to a Bilevel or BiPAP auto adjusting pressure machine. A comparison is at CPAP Vs Bilevel Settings Example.
For
an Elite Athlete, what settings do you actually use on the sleep apnea machine? There
is no one answer as it will depend on many factors. However, based on my own personal
experience and recent research studies, I offer some observations and
principles to follow.
In a 2018
research study, the conclusion was:
The
sleep of elite athletes is influenced by many factors, both societal (e.g.,
electronic media devices) and sport-specific factors (e.g., training, seasonal
phases, competition, travel). All these acute and chronic stressors experienced
by elite athletes may partly account for large inter- and intra-individual
sleep variabilities.
The
Variability of Sleep among Elite Athletes
Nedelec M,
Aloulou A, Duforez F, Meyer T, Dupont G. The Variability of Sleep among Elite
Athletes. Sports Med Open.
2018;4(1):34. Published 2018 Jul 27. doi:10.1186/s40798-018-0151-2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6063976/
In addition, it is common
in some elite athletes to have obstructive sleep apnea due to the particular
sport they play such as Rugby Union and American Football players. These
athletes may have large body masses and “thick” necks or extra fat or muscle
tissue on the neck. You can read more at this article:
How does sleep affect high
performance athletes?
By Shawn Youngstedt, PhD
In another study conducted
in 2018, it was shown that “Overall, success was obtained in 95% of cases of
intolerance to CPAP”. This study included people with high BMI’s of 40 or more.
Of particular interest in this study was that it noted that the settings may
need to consider “pressure support, occurrence of air leaks and other variables
such as inspiratory time, inspiratory and expiratory triggers, respiratory rate
and estimated tidal volume, tolerance to air pressure and air humidity.”
Use
of autobilevel ventilation in patients with obstructive sleep apnea: An
observational study. Baiamonte P, Mazzuca E, Gruttad’Auria CI, et al. J Sleep
Res. 2018;e12680.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12680
An examination of the settings that I use on the bilevel machine as detailed on the blog page Different Bilevel Settings Example; you can see that it is essential that a person consider the above variables especially where you are having CPAP issues.
To overcome the many factors affecting sleep, I use 3 ResMed VPAP S9 Bilevel auto adjusting machines. Each machine has a different setting. The machine to be used on a particular day will depend on the situation including a competition game, a rest day and eating and drinking late. Further details are on the blog post Use Different CPAP and Bilevel Pressure Settings.
As mentioned on a previous blog post Elite Athletes need Bilevel, a major weakness of the CPAP
and auto-adjusting CPAP Machines is that the machines are limited in their
settings such as pressure support of 3 cmH2O. A bilevel machine has pressure
support of up to 10 cmH2O. In addition, the CPAP machines do not have settings
for Trigger and Cycle and TI Max and TI Min. These additional settings allow
you to optimize the settings on the machine for you so that you can have a
great night’s sleep.
As an example, when eating and drinking late at night, I use a bilevel auto adjusting machine with pressure support of 5.0 cmH2O. Using pressure support greater than 3.0 cmH2O stops me from hyperventilating or over-breathing when asleep and waking up feeling tired in the morning. Using pressure support greater than 3.0 cmH2O has good implications for those users who have a high BMI and /or gained weight since starting CPAP therapy. A discussion with a medical specialist at one of the major equipment suppliers supports this conclusion.
Should you consider using 3 bilevel machines with
different settings on each machine, an example is provided of how I use these
machines in a typical week. Observe what I have done and apply the principles
to your own situation.