I was fumbling to turn my machine off to go to the bathroom on Friday night, couldn't find the button and was swatting around for it (half asleep still). When I did make contact, I guess I hit it too hard! I woke up Saturday with one heck of a dry mouth and throat and then discovered that my humidifier was not working. In fact after investigating through the menus, the machine had no idea a humidifier existed! Long story short, due to financial reasons I needed to fix this myself. I did manage to fix the humidifier problem, but what I did not notice until bedtime was that it shot right up to 20 cmH2O! I thought my eyes were going to shoot across the room! The only thing I could do was to take it out of Auto and set it to a low pressure, I think I used 8, to try and get some sleep. Well even that was blowing my hair back, tried ramp, that didn't do anything either! So I slept on a straight setting of 8 cmH2O all night, inhaling, exhaling, begging, praying, whatever, it was 8...or it said it was, but I have my doubts! It turns out I did not get something put back right and I fixed it today and it is working fine now, but I made an observation through all of this (God knows I had time for observations, I couldn't sleep!) and that was that I could not keep a seal for more than a minute or two! I'm betting with a FFM or one of the older style of nasal masks, like the ADAM Circuit I could have gotten a seal. I believe the nasal masks today with their flimsy construction are not made to take a constant, high pressure. Most of our machines today (yes, I too have a really old one in the closet, but I mean the newer models) have the ability to deliver a therapeutic pressure during the inhalation, then back off during other time so the masks are not subjected to the same stresses of a straight out constant pressure. So here is what I am kinda wondering about; a lot of folks have been saying that they have major leak problems even after adjusting their mask properly. Machines vary, but as an example, my machine has several different comfort setting with the A-Flax and CFlex or whatever (it has been set for so long I don't remember what they all are!). If you have a machine with these different settings, maybe it would help to experiment with these comfort settings and see if that helps you to achieve and maintain a seal. I have found (since last night) that seals just don't hold up to having to forcefully exhale against a gale of wind. Just my thought for the day!
Sleep Well!
Mike
And just for the record I am also getting a battery pack ordered on Monday! We bought a new house and moved to a different part of the city and it seems our electricity provider cannot provide very well!
PRS1 - Auto - A-Flex x2 - 12.50 - 20 - Humid x2 - Swift FX