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[CPAP] Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
#21
RE: Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
If you discover a leak in the system including the mask, correct it. If you can not find any leaks in the system, I would suspect mouth leaks. Try a chin strap. If the chin strap does not provide enough correction, my recommendation would be to try another nasal pillows mask like the P10 or go to a full face mask.

Best Regards,

PaytonA

Admin Note:
PaytonA passed away in September 2017
Click HERE to read his Memorial Thread

~ Rest in Peace ~
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#22
RE: Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
Great job posting the data. Next time, be sure to click on the Details tab instead of the events tab before taking the screenshot, and there is some important data for us there. The reason the daily data helps more than a summary in this case is we can see where the baseline leaks really are how leaks change through the night, and what effect pressure has on leaks.

First, you have ramp turned on. You can see on the pressure graph, you start at 4.0 pressure and gradually increase to a therapy pressure over 15 minutes. Then pressure goes up FAST! This is setting you up for failure, because you may not be aware of leaks until the machine reaches that treatment pressure. If you can handle it, turn off the ramp feature so you start the night aware of leaks in the equipment and mask, and fix them. Also, that low pressure often feels suffocating. Sound familiar? Turn off ramp, or make the minimum pressure for ramp 6.0 in the clinical settings. Your pressure is increasing that fast because I suspect you are ringing up flow limitations that your graphs are not showing. I'll explain below how to change that. But this is another indication that ramp is suffocating you, and as soon as it ends we see a rush of pressure and a cluster of not-real apneas and hypopnea.

It appears there is nearly 16 to 20 lpm of background leaks, but leaks increase into large leak category when you sleep more deeply. I think you have a hose leak and I suspect you are leaking through the mouth much of the night.

Lets make a change to your Sleepyhead settings first. Open Sleepyhead and click on File, Preferences and go to the Waveform tab. On the Leak Rate line are two settable values. Change the lower leak rate to 30. This will cause the graph to use your machine defaults for flagging large leaks rather than what Sleepyhead thinks is a leak. Also, on the Events preferences tab, check the boxes on both sides of Flow Limitations and Vibratory Snores so those features shows up on your event charts and statistics. Flow limitations are a key reason that pressures increase, and we need to see them.

Okay, lets see some more data before we make any changes to your machine. I think if you do the thinks in this post, your leaks will greatly improve, and I need to see the machine settings in the Details tab of the daily data.
Sleeprider
Apnea Board Moderator
www.ApneaBoard.com

____________________________________________
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INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
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#23
RE: Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
(02-13-2015, 09:00 PM)Sleeprider Wrote: Lets make a change to your Sleepyhead settings first. Open Sleepyhead and click on File, Preferences and go to the Waveform tab. On the Leak Rate line are two settable values. Change the lower leak rate to 30. This will cause the graph to use your machine defaults for flagging large leaks rather than what Sleepyhead thinks is a leak.

This is not necessary with Resmed machines which report unintentional leaks only. Leaks over 24 L/min are regarded as large leaks by Resmed and this is mirrored in Sleepyhead. Note that Resmed and PR handle leak reporting quite differently from each other.
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#24
RE: Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
Thank you for all your replies and suggestions & my apologies for the late reply.

sgearhart, I've been making purchases online & that's the only place i can get the stuffs i need. Prices in my area are quite costly approx marked up x2.5.

PaytonA & Sleeprider, I've checked the whole system for leak, the host, the connectors and the mask. On low pressure there's no signs of leakage but when i turn it up to 10 the mask started leaking air. So i think that might be the reason.

Anyway, these are the results from yesterday,
[Image: yP1q9eMl.png]
[Image: BXO5p4Fl.png]
[Image: tQBpaVcl.png]
[Image: 5h7rsI8l.png]

For now I've changed the min pressure and start pressure to 6.0 now and it feels much better compared to being at 4.0. Also I've tighten my mask to ensure that there's no leakage when the pressure is at 15. I'll update the results after trying out the new settings.
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#25
RE: Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
AnonAgent, have you tried using the mask fit facility on your machine? Put your mask on then push and hold the push dial for three seconds. The machine will crank up to maximum pressure which will rapidly identify leaks. While you're doing this open your mouth so you and your partner can hear what a mouth leak sounds like, and maybe identify one if it happens in your sleep.
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#26
RE: Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
DeepBreathing, yup, I used that to test for leakage just now & we also did the mouth opening thing earlier so she can identify if it's leaking from the mask or the mouth. She did mention that i don't sleep with my mouth open whenever she wakes up halfway in the night.
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#27
RE: Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
The leaks are a real mess, and I'd suggest a new mask and possibly trying a full face to see if it helps. If you get a new mask, buy from a company like Supplier #1 or a DME that provides a 30 day return policy. Also, for a nasal mask, the Airfit P10 has been a real solid performer for me and cut leaks in half from my former mask, the Swift FX.

Your obstructive apnea and hypopnea events are correlating with times when your machine pressure is dropping to the minimum. I think you need to increase your minimum pressure to 6.0. You may want to be more conservative and only increase by increments of 1.0. The graph is pretty clear where the problems are happening. Please turn on the flow limitations and snores in the graphs. File/Preferences/Events, then check the left and right hand boxes for those events.
Sleeprider
Apnea Board Moderator
www.ApneaBoard.com

____________________________________________
Download OSCAR Software
Soft Cervical Collar
Optimizing Therapy
Organize your OSCAR Charts
Attaching Files
Mask Primer
How To Deal With Equipment Supplier


INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.
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#28
RE: Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
Thanks for the recommendation, will take a look at those company that you've mentioned.

By checking the left and right hand boxes, you mean this?
[Image: HnmDp6I.png]

Cause i don't see any differences when i check those boxes.
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#29
RE: Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
it has been noted before in various places that -

excessive leakage causes the machine to be less able to detect and properly characterize (score) the events.
your chart is a classic example of this

you'll note in grey bands there are precious few events scored.

once the leaks are reduced you may find your AHI score for the night is increased some - or alot.

good luck - have you tried any chin support/strap ideas?

QAL
Dedicated to QALity sleep.
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#30
RE: Need help trying to understand where the air leak is coming from.
to view flow limitations, you might try - on the daily tab (main screen) lower right corner - clicking the down arrow where it says event flags. see if flow limitations is listed, and if is shows as red (off), select it to change to green (on).
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