CPAP Newbie - Waking All Night With Mask Leaks

[Embeeous]

I was diagnosed with severe OSA a few weeks ago, and got set up with a brand new CPAP machine and two masks last week.

My equipment:

- ResMed AirSense11 AutoSet
- Phillips Respironics DreamWear Full Face
- ResMed AirFit N30i

I have an after market chin strap that I purchased but have not used.

I was fitted twice by health care professionals behind these products, in both cases I was told that I was borderline on size, but both mouthpieces recommended for me, for both masks, are size “M”.

Generally speaking, I am a side sleeper, a heavy mouth breather, and I tend to toss and turn a lot in bed. 

So my first week with CPAP has been nothing but hell, much worse then before CPAP when I would just wake every night at 3am like clockwork from the apnea, and either go back to sleep, or not. 

Now, the new routine is as follows:

- Go to sleep with either mask and machine on. Everything is working fine at bedtime.
- One hour later give or take, I wake up to air shooting out from all around my mask. Doesn’t matter if it’s the nasal mask, or the full mask, same thing happens. The mask is on, it feels good, nothing to adjust by hand, but I can’t get the whooshing air to stop without shutting off the machine and starting the process from scratch again. 
- Now repeat that process, all night, every night, until it’s morning and I’ve got to get up, or I throw the mask on the floor and just sleep old school.

So far, I’ve only adjusted mask straps. Making them tighter only hurts my face and nose, it doesn’t prevent the middle of the night leaks. I have not tried the chin strap with the nasal mask yet, but I’m thinking the full mask might be better for me anyway, if I could just get it to work. 

The company and people behind these products are great, but stretched thin, and it’s hard to get them to understand what’s going on, and have them help me. After the initial fitting, it’s all been remote, or I have to come to them, as opposed to seeing me at home in the correct setting. They’re trying, but I think that I need to try and help myself here too, thus this post.

Other possibilities:

- Change the mouthpiece size
- Change masks altogether (these two came free, next one costs me until another three months under insurance)
- Change bedding or pillow
- Change something else about my bedtime routine
- Machine settings, or a faulty machine
- Maybe there isn’t a good CPAP solution for side sleeping, mouth breathing, tossing and turning people like myself.

All kidding aside, I am not a quitter, and I’m willing to put the time, effort, and yes, additional money into getting this to work, but I starting to lose confidence in CPAP as a viable solution for me . And I haven’t had a good nights sleep in months, with the last week being probably the worst sleep of my life.

I’m sorry if my question are too basic, or don’t provide the necessary data for you to help me. I am trying my best, I am brand new to all of this, and I haven’t slept great in months


I need help, thanks in advance for any advice, direction, information, etc.

[G. Szabo]

Would you mind downloading OSCAR and posting your treatment details? So we can help you better.

[Embeeous]

Sure. I’m assuming that OSCAR is an iOS app, there are a number of apps named OSCAR in the Apple App Store, can you please tell me which one to download? And are there any instructions anywhere on how to install and export data that would be useful here? Thanks.

[Embeeous]

OK I’m guessing that you are talking about OSCAR open source Windows software for CPAP reporting. I will install and try to figure out how to use and gather data to provide back here. Thank you.

[Embeeous]

I have successfully installed an SD card in my AirSense 11, it looks like it completed its format and is ready to capture data.  I will install OSCAR on my computer next.  I'm guessing that I will need days if not weeks of data to be captured? What kind of time frame am I looking for in terms of how much data is needed for next steps?

[G. Szabo]

Two to three night will do to start with.

[Jay51]

Here are some tips as well from our Wiki to help prevent mask leaks:     

• Mask leak solutions                  Mask Primer
  

[Embeeous]

OK, hopefully the device will start capturing tonight, and I will look to import into Oscar and update this discussion later this week.  Thank you.

---

Here are some tips as well from our Wiki to help prevent mask leaks:     

• Mask leak solutions                  Mask Primer
  

Thank you!  I did a quick review earlier, I'll spend some more time with it this evening.  Because I still can't sleep   A wealth of information in all of the attached links, thank you very much.

[SarcasticDave94]

Even one night's data can help point areas to make this better.

You can always do both, post tonight's data tomorrow with your comments and complaints on therapy. Members will comment regarding edits to improve things.

Then collect a few days and post those together to give a trend portrait.

[Embeeous]

Even one night's data can help point areas to make this better.

You can always do both, post tonight's data tomorrow with your comments and complaints on therapy. Members will comment regarding edits to improve things.

Then collect a few days and post those together to give a trend portrait.

OK, here is my first night's data:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...drive_link

I tried to follow the guidelines at https://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.ph...ganization as best as I could, please let me know if this works.  Any initial observations or feedback would be appreciated. 

Some additional observations from last night...I switched to a CPAP oriented pillow from Lunberg, which seems to hold both me and my full face mask in place all night.  It didn't however prevent the regular issues that I stated before - every hour or so, all night long, I was still waking up.  Now this time I made it a point to keep the mask on, feel around my face, and tap the AirSense11 screen to see what it was saying. I noticed that right before I went to bed, the machine quickly ramped me up to a pressure of 4, and I felt a tiny bit of air around the mask but not a leaking feeling. I could create a leak by pulling the mask off of my face, then remove the leak by putting it right back on.  When I woke up each time, there was more air coming out from all around the mask, but it wasn't "whoosing" and making crazy loud noises like the other night.  And when I tapped on the screen, almost immediately upon waking up, it was showing pressures between 8-10+, I think, I was tired but it was definitely up from the original 4.  Which is fine, the machine is supposed to up the pressure at the time of an apnea event, right? What struck me was that the machine didn't really reduce the pressure back down. I'm sure that it eventually settled back down to that 4 range, or not, maybe it never goes back down. But now I'm thinking that the increased pressure to avoid an apnea event is waking me up, and the machine not going back down to that lower pressure range is keeping me up longer.  I'm just wondering if this is normal, or a setting that needs to be changed, or a problem with the machine.  Again, all still very new to this, trying to understand how to properly set up and use the machine while still allowing me to actually get some sleep.  Thanks.