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With nasal mask, feel air "buildup" and need to swallow
#1
With nasal mask, feel air "buildup" and need to swallow
Hi folks! I hope you can help me troubleshoot this. So, I have a dreamwear full face mask, and I can use it fine. I breathe and everything feels great. But with the nasal mask (Dreamwear nasal cushion AND Resmed N30i), I can breathe fine, but I feel like there's a "buildup" of air like at the back of my mouth, and I feel the need to swallow (more so with the Resmed N30i). Combined with this, I feel pressure in my ears (again, I don't feel this with the full face mask - and I'm usually just breathing through my nose with that too. 
another data point: I'm a little congested in one nostril. 
Yes, I do have the setting put to "nasal pillows" (what Resmed says to do).

Can anyone tell me why this is happening, and what I can do to fix it? I really want to be able to wear the nasal mask, but not if it makes me swallow all the time. 

I suspect it will have to do with turning my pressure down?

Thanks in advance!
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#2
RE: With nasal mask, feel air "buildup" and need to swallow
When that happened to me I dropped my pressure .2 (from 7.0 to 6.8). It made a huge difference. I mouth tape and leave a very small opening at one end to release the air. That being said since I dropped the pressure there is no longer excess air in my mouth. Not sure this will work for you and is solely based on my own experience.
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#3
RE: With nasal mask, feel air "buildup" and need to swallow
.2 is all it took? wow! after I posted this I dropped my lowest pressure from 10 to 8. It alleviated it somewhat, and didnt' affect my AHI too much, so maybe I can lower it even ore.
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#4
RE: With nasal mask, feel air "buildup" and need to swallow
Yep…that was all it took! Good job lowering your pressure. Hope it works out! ?
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#5
RE: With nasal mask, feel air "buildup" and need to swallow
Yup, same as YipeekiOH here. When I went up to pressure of 9, I would get random leaks into my mouth. When I reduced to the pressure, it wouldn't leak. So, what I did was try incrementing little at a time until find a threshold that the air doesn't leak, and it was 8.6. This is generally how I find the right fixed pressure as well. I do well with fixed pressure settings. I don't use auto pressures.

Leaks are one of the reason why I go fixed pressure. So, I can control the pressure limit to prevent leaks.

I would also try sleeping on the side. I noticed greater chances of a leak when sleeping on my back. When sleeping on the side, particularly left side, there were no leaks.
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#6
RE: With nasal mask, feel air "buildup" and need to swallow
Fixed pressure has helped so much. Solid sleep each night. Had lots of problems with APAP due to excess pressure. That said, lots of people get great benefit from APAP while some of us just need fixed pressure.
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