What is Titration?

The most common treatment for sleep apnea is using a CPAP machine where air is pushed through a tube into your throat to keep your airway open. While it sounds rather simple there are quite a few issues that are involved with this process with the biggest being the comfort of wearing a mask at night and having air forced into your throat. Not everyone can get used to the mask but many do. What does get a little tricky is how much air pressure is taken through the mask. This is called titration.

If you think that you have sleep apnea your first step should be to your general practitioner who will send you on to a sleep specialist, who are typically ENTs or pulmonologists (respiratory doctors). If the sleep specialist thinks that you may have sleep apnea then they will set up a sleep study which will determine whether you have sleep apnea or not.

In my case the first sleep study was just to determine if I had sleep apnea whereas some folks have a split study where the second half of the night the sleep technicians put a CPAP mask on you.  The technicians will monitor your sleeping or lack of it from another room. They can also adjust the amount of air that is going through your CPAP mask. Hopefully at the end of the study the sleep techs will have enough information to send to your doctor to recommend a titration setting on the CPAP machine.

If you do decide to try the CPAP machine the titration rate will be adjusted for you by a sleep tech. usually a nurse or someone who specializes in CPAP setting will come out to your house with the CPAP and set it up for you.

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