Enlargement of Nostrils by Nasal Pillows?

[Walla Walla]

It may be just me. But I'll take a little larger pair of nostrils over a heart attack, stroke or head on collision because I fell asleep.

My wife is more concerned about my growing belly than my nose. If you stare at your feet long enough they get bigger too.   

[Doza]

Is this really  a concern?  

At my age it's ok.  Our noses and ears and feet etc are supposed to get bigger from now on..  Hell the rest of me has, so why not? 
It might even give me a nice little upturn

If I was even 10 years younger it might have concerned me a little bit though.

[illawarrior]

If the belly is large enough, it obscures the view of the feet! 

As for the other matter, the choice is not between large nostrils and heart attack/stroke - the choice is between different styles of masks.

[Walla Walla]

OK. If you can sleep as well with a different mask than by all means do so. However if a person gets better sleep with Nasal Pillows than it would make sense to stick with the pillows. There is no one size fits all.

I'm just not a vanity type person I guess.

[Sleepster]

A look at the historical practices of various African tribes clearly shows that continued applied pressure stretches necks and ear lobes.

But in those practices the stretching devices are left in day and night, you're removing yours every day for about 16 hours or so.

If it's a concern, though, the good news is that once you adapt to the pressure, it becomes easier to switch to a nasal mask or full face mask that covers the nose instead of going inside the nose. They also make masks that fit under the nose and make a seal that way instead of inside the nose. The web site of Supplier #1 is a good place to go to look at different kinds of masks.

Another bonus for me was that when I switched from nasal pillows to a full face mask I didn't have those morning marks on my face. I used to have them every morning and it took about an hour for them to go away. Now I rarely have a mark on one side or the other of my face in the morning and it goes away in a few minutes.

We should have a look at your leak rate graph. Lots of people have mouth leaks and switching to a full face mask improves the quality of our sleep significantly.

[BadGoodDeb]

..... They also make masks that fit under the nose and make a seal that way instead of inside the nose. .....

You may also want to try different SIZES of the nasal mask, keeping the same system that you already have.  I've switched up in size so much that my nasal pillows don't mostly go inside my nose.  They sit under the nose, and make a seal with only a small portion of the mask inside the nose. 

I made the switch to "medium" and then up to "large" so that I could get more oxygen through them, since my nose is clogged with "non allergic rhinitus" and has such a small passageway that I couldn't stand the smaller volume of air, that my supplier fitted me with.  They looked at my face and said "small".   That made me feel suffocated right off, so I switched to "medium" within a day or two.   A year later I tried "large" and haven't gone back since.

And it mostly doesn't go in my nose, but under it.   So there's less of your concern about shape changing.  

It might be worth a try, anyway.

[Sheepish]

This is something I also felt might be a concern when I started using the Nuance Pro Gel nasal pillow mask a couple of months ago after having been on a nasal mask before that. Although I think the fit is good -- resting on the outside of the nostrils, not in them -- it just had a nostril-expanding feeling, along with a constant slight upward pressure on the nose, which made me wonder if in the long run I would end up with a flared nostril pug nose.

I was reassured on another forum by longtime nasal pillow users that this is nothing to be concerned about, but I still can't shake the feeling. I will say that a couple of other masks I'm trying give me a slightly different feeling from the Nuance Pro. The P10, although also a nasal pillow mask, doesn't produce such a noticeable sensation; it's perhaps more attenuated by its small size and minimal headgear. The Dreamwear is a fish of a different stripe   as it's a nasal cushion and as such doesn't go up against the rims of your nostrils, although it can cause an initial soreness to your columella-philtral angle.

[kiwii]

You could always ask a plastic surgeon; they'd give you an accurate and informed answer.

[illawarrior]

Thanks, I was thinking of trying smaller - didn't occur to me to try bigger

[Sheepish]

I have been using nasal pillows for 6 months and have become increasingly concerned that my nostrils appear to be gradually stretching.

There are several factors involved here. First, it used to be that starting my CPAP machine would cause my nostrils to inflate a little but resist the expansion, and then a couple of minutes later they would gradually relax to allow a greater expansion. However I have recently noticed that my nostrils no longer resist the initial application of pressure and seem to go immediately to the fully expanded state.

Secondly, my nasal pillows seem to move further into my nostrils than they used to, to the point that they sometimes cause discomfort or soreness. Several weeks ago I contracted a nasal infection which may be related.

Third, I woke up last night in the middle of the night with a feeling that my mask was suffocating me. My attempts to deliberately breathe more deeply were entirely unsuccessful. Eventually I realized that my left nostril was either blocked or severely restricted and I would have to take off my mask. I then discovered that my left nasal pillow had moved so far up inside my nostril that it was causing the blockage. It took a surprising amount of effort to remove it.

I have never experienced anything like this before. The possible causes that occur to me include: something wrong with the nasal pillows or the CPAP machine; an unusual force acting on the pillows mask while I was sleeping; or nostrils that have gradually become enlarged to the point that a pillow can move up inside.

My CPAP pressure settings are unchanged from 6 months ago, and so that is not the issue.

The fact that last night I was able to put the same pillows mask back on, restart my machine, breathe normally and get some more sleep seems to rule out an equipment defect. The only source I could find of a possible unusual force acting on the pillows mask was a minor torsional twist that I observed in the mask tubing and corrected before going back to sleep. And so I am left wondering about the possibility of my nostrils gradually stretching under pressure.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

I want to say yes. It really does feel that way with nasal pillow masks. I might need to get a set of precision calipers to confirm empirically, though, if it's not too late.