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I have changed from a nasal mask to a facial mask because I have had large leaks with the nasal mask. I have gone from having one OA every two weeks to having 7 in one night with the facial mask. What could be the cause? With the facial mask, the leaks have been completely eliminated and the flow limits have been considerably reduced.
I don't know if my question is clear enough. What I am trying to convey is that with the nasal mask I have no OA and with the facial mask on my first day of use I have had 7 OA without knowing exactly what the cause is. The mask was changed due to the high levels of leaks and flow limits.
If I understand you correctly, you had good AHI results with the nasal mask, with high leak rates, and with the facial mask, leaks have gone, but the AHI has increased?
The likely answer is in a high leak environment, over 24l/min, the results often become unreliable, as the machine is not designed for a chaotic pressure environment.
How high were your pressures previously? How high did they go, 30l/m, 40l/min?
It would be helpful to post your charts in English. Go to the top of the page, select Help(the Spanish equalalent) then change language.
You can easily change back to Spanish afterwards. No data is lost. (I change from English to French and vice versa. It's quick and easy to do).
If you want to post a previous chart with these high leaks, it may help us to understand better.
Your leaks with the nasal mask could have been actually mouth leaks.
Looking at the last two with the nasal mask, the leak rate are a bit high, but I have seen far worse. They range between 21 and 28 l/min. That would not cause a significant distortion in the AHI results. It would certainly contribute to sleep quality.
Your AHI with the full face mask are still very good, 0.00 and 1.84. you can't expect to have 0.00 every night. I possible.
What is most important is how you feel, not just the AHI figures.
Looking again at the recent full face masks results, it my be better to increase your minimum to at least 8 from 7, to dampen down the pressure swings to be more comfortable.
