AirFit F10 Elbow leak

[Cairnam]

Hello,

I am new to this world as I got my first CPAP machine yesterday. I do believe I've had this issue for at least the last 15 year (now 34) and my case was very bad (>99 confirmed events per hour at my sleep study, no rem at all, etc).

I had not such a bad night, averaging 20 events/h with the cpap (well compared to 99/h, that's good, no?), which I had not expected since when they calibrated me at the sleep study I had no events at 11 cm h2o and my cpap is calibrated for that and more.

The question I have until I can contact my doctor is about the mask; it appear to be leaking quite a lot at the elbow, and I was wondering if that was reducing the effectiveness or normal. The ResMed S10 reported an average of 10l/m being lost to the leak which I have no way to know if it's good or not.

I downloaded sleepyhead and it confirmed leaks between 8 (med) to 14L/m (95%), do I have to worry about this ? Thank you!

[trish6hundred]

Hi Cairnam,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
You might be confusing a leak in the elbow with vent holes which are necessary for the mask to work properly.
Hang in there for more answers to your question and much success to you with your CPAP therapy.

[PaytonA]

If you are feeling air coming out around where the elbow inserts into the frame, That is where the intentional vents are. This vent is necessary for the safe operation of the mask. It reduces residual CO2 in the system. The Resmed machine reports unintentional leaks, which are leaks over and above the amount of air flowing through the vent. Unintentional leaks below 24 l/min. are considered to be not objectionable from the machine's point of view. The machine can still overcome the leak and provide the proper pressure and it can still sense and discriminate apneas.

Best Regards,

PaytonA

[justMongo]

If you are feeling air coming out around where the elbow inserts into the frame, That is where the intentional vents are. This vent is necessary for the safe operation of the mask. It reduces residual flushes CO2 in the system. The Resmed machine reports unintentional leaks, which are leaks over and above the amount of air flowing through the vent. Unintentional leaks below 24 l/min. are considered to be not objectionable from the machine's point of view. The machine can still overcome the leak and provide the proper pressure and it can still sense and discriminate apneas.

Best Regards,

PaytonA

[quiescence at last]

all true, that intentional and non-intentional leaks can be fairly high without changing the effectiveness of the therapy, and 20 to 24 l/min is a lot. The other thing that leaks do is disrupt sleep (for some patients) due to:

1. making noise or making the machine make more noise.
2. leaks hitting or pushing past skin, hair, or eyes.
If the leaks are as described, but do not disrupt your sleep, then it's fine!

If disruptions do occur you can actually use techniques to help minimize the disruptions. For number 2 above, for example, many use cloth pad between mask and skin. In some cases this actually increases the leak a little bit, but greatly reduces the sound of hissing, and is soothing rather than alerting. For number 1, I sometimes hang a handkerchief in front of my mask, and it slows the flow just slightly and spreads it out, decreasing the sound but the flow is still well above needed to be safe from CO2 buildup.

Good luck.

QAL