High leakage

[stillaliveca]

I have developed a persistent high leakage. The little red face is on frequently. My event numbers have not been great either, with lots of 3's and 4's. I am wearing the same masks as before and am taping my mouth to keep it closed. I have attached a sample day from Oscar.

[RainbowFish]

Why are you taping your mouth if you are using an F20?  Could be the mask is getting old, or the straps are stretching with use.  Really hard to tell, as there are a lot of variables.  I would suggest taking everything apart - mask, headgear, hose, etc.  Give is a wash, and put it back together from scratch and see if there is something you find that was off.

[stillaliveca]

I wash everything weekly. I change the mask pillow regularly. I tape my mouth to prevent mouth breathing.

[stillaliveca]

And i replaced the straps recently.

[YipeekiOH]

Is it possible the F20 isn’t the mask for you? If you are mouth taping it seems as though you are a nose breather and there are some wonderful nasal cushion or nasal pillow masks that may not leak as much. When a leak rate is that high I question whether your therapy is working as the machine compensates for a leak rate of 24L/min. What you posted doesn’t show the actual leak rate but based on assumption it is much higher than that.

Personally the F20 almost made me quit CPAP therapy until discovering a nasal cushion mask and Bleep Dreamports. Currently I have zero leaks using either solution. That being said, we all have differing facial anatomy and sleep styles.

I’m sure the wonderful resident experts here will make suggestions to help you through this and I wish you the very best.

[ItsComplicated]

I use an F20 memory foam mask and tape also.  It works well for me.  Mouth breathing,  even with the F20,  left my mouth very dry.  Taping helps quite a bit with dry mouth.  It also helps keep the F20 memory foam dry and it seems to hold its shape better, which makes it last longer.  The lower portion of the face mask presses on the tape giving a very solid seal.  Leaks did go up some with taping.  I believe it is because the memory foam seals better on my face than it does over the mouth tape.   The leak is constant with a leak rate of about 38, and I almost always have 0% time over the leak red line.

[RainbowFish]

The consistency of the leak makes me think there is a hole or crack somewhere. Or, as ItsComplicated says,there is a constant leak from the stationary tape. I think of the F20 as a fairly quiet mask at baseline. Can you hear the leak? If not, maybe it is further up the hose. Perhaps a more knowledgeable forum member has experience re whether the is a machine-side area could have leaks. I never had that experience with the Autoset, but did have a hose that did not set solidly into the machine one time.

We cannot see the whole night, BTW, it looks like your computer did the screen close up shot that I get when I do an f12 on my smaller screen in my dual monitor set up.

[clownbell]

The above OSCAR snippet says you were in large leak territory 49% of the night. With so much time in large leak, the machine may not be adequately reporting AHI information; it has to guess and may guess wrong. So solving the leak issue is Priority #1.

In order to get the best replies, please post a full OSCAR chart -- not just a snippet. The wiki will tell you the particulars.

I am wondering if perhaps there is a tiny pinhole leak in the tube or a leak where the tube connects to the machine. Also wondering if the F20 is not compatible with your basic face shape.

[stillaliveca]

Hopefully this is a better screenshot.

[stillaliveca]

I am taping my mouth to keep it closed as my natural tendency is to mouth breathe and snore.

Interesting idea about a leak in the hose I should be able to test that by filling it with water and submerging it and looking for bubbles.