Changing masks

[Sweetdreams2013]

They scheduled me to come in tomorrow and get a different mask. Only been on bipap 15 days now. They have been monitoring it thru the modem and apparently it's not "doing its job". I'm not sure what, if any questions I should ask? I hope I don't need the full blown crazy headgear one. The last few nights I've only been keeping my mask on half the night. I'm so scared to wAke up having those tremendously unbarable pains from aerophagia. They also told me over the phone that 'I need that pressure' setting. Which is 14

[Paptillian]

Sweetdreams, do you know why they started you on a full face mask? That might be one question to ask. My sleep lab started me off with nasal pillows. From what I understand, they usually don't "graduate" you to bigger masks unless there's a reason or the nasal ones aren't working for you.

For me personally, the pillows seal well around my nostrils and I haven't had mask leaks that are problematic.

[trish6hundred]

Hi Sweetdreams2013,
Yeah, sometimes full-face masks, )FFMs,) can be quite proned to leaks and that might be what they are concerned about, just ask them when you go to try on different masks.
Good luck in finding the right mask for you.

[RonWessels]

If the sleep study found that you are a mouth breather, a full face mask would certainly be the logical choice. Nasal pillows at pressures greater than 10 have a poor success rate.

When you wake up in the night, do you already feel bloated and are afraid of making it worse?

One thing to point out to your doctor is that, even though you supposedly "need" a pressure of 14, unless your aerophagia is dealt with, you might end up with a pressure of 0. Temporarily lowering your pressure so you can acclimate is better than not getting treatment at all.

[Sweetdreams2013]

I already knew I was a mouth breather before my sleep studies. I had mentioned I wanted the FFM. Ill just see what masks are presented today and hope for the best

[PaulaO2]

If the sleep study found that you are a mouth breather, a full face mask would certainly be the logical choice. Nasal pillows at pressures greater than 10 have a poor success rate.

That would be incorrect. I have a pressure range of 12-17 with the 95% being between 16 and 17. My leak rate is great. It was better with the Breeze nasal pillow but still well within norms with the one I have now.

I already knew I was a mouth breather before my sleep studies. I had mentioned I wanted the FFM. Ill just see what masks are presented today and hope for the best

There's also trying a chinstrap. There's several different kinds from the simple wide band to fairly high tech. Ask about those and give them a try.

Then, download SleepyHead and look at your data yourself.

[RonWessels]

If the sleep study found that you are a mouth breather, a full face mask would certainly be the logical choice. Nasal pillows at pressures greater than 10 have a poor success rate.

That would be incorrect. I have a pressure range of 12-17 with the 95% being between 16 and 17. My leak rate is great. It was better with the Breeze nasal pillow but still well within norms with the one I have now.

Sorry, I was unclear. Based on videos from <hmm, the forum doesn't seem to like his YouTube ID - search for "CPAP" in YouTube videos to find them> (who I think is a DME technician, but who has very helpful mask reviews based on his clients usage), nasal pillows at pressures greater than 10 tend to have a poor compliance success rate. Apparently people tend not to like them at the higher pressures for various reasons.

I am envious of your ability to use nasal pillows at your pressure level.

[archangle]

If the sleep study found that you are a mouth breather, a full face mask would certainly be the logical choice.

FFMs have several drawbacks. Unless you can't breathe through your nose, I think you should always try a nasal mask and chinstrap before giving up and settling on a FFM.

Nasal pillows at pressures greater than 10 have a poor success rate.

That's a persistent myth, but I don't think there's any data to support it. Quite a few people report successfully using nasal pillows at high pressure. My Swift FX works fine at 16 to 18.

FFMs are no panacea for high pressures. They may have leak problems at low pressure and high pressure even makes it worse.

Some DMEs tend to push FFMs because they're sort of the "last resort" and the DME doesn't want to work to find the right mask, so they go straight to FFM.

However, if you can't make a nasal mask work, sometimes the FFM is the best you can do.

[RonWessels]

Nasal pillows at pressures greater than 10 have a poor success rate.

That's a persistent myth, but I don't think there's any data to support it. Quite a few people report successfully using nasal pillows at high pressure. My Swift FX works fine at 16 to 18.

As I tried to clarify in my subsequent post, I don't doubt that there are people that use nasal pillows at high pressures. However, people on this board are probably not necessarily a representative sample of all CPAP users. A YouTube poster who posts video reviews of CPAP masks and machines, and who implies that he is either a doctor or DME technician and therefore sees many many CPAP patients, claims that his experience is that nasal pillows at high pressures do not seem to be favoured by the majority of patients he sees.

I have no first-hand knowledge in the matter, other than I was able to acclimate to my nasal mask before I acclimated to some nasal pillows, so I ended up giving up trying since I had something that worked.

[zonk]

On days when nose stuffed-up, I use full face mask and set the machine at CPAP 10 as cannot control leaks if pressure set any higher but of course everyone is different ... use whatever works best for you and don,t listen to grumpy old man