New CPAP user: are mask leaks/adjustments just something you have to live with?

[theredheadsaid]

Hi folks! I'm happy to have found this group - so much great knowledge here.
So I'm a new papper person: just two weeks on CPAP. My pressure is good, I ALMOST have the right mask (Dreamwear full face). I"m starting to get more and better sleep per night (just cracked 7 hours). However: I'm continually slightly awakened by little mask squeaks/farts and I have to adjust my mask. They aren't "large leaks" so my pressure is still good, and my apneas are being controlled overall (more CA events than anything else).
SO I'm wondering, does this mean I still have more mask tweaking/fitting/sizing to do? Or is it just a fact of CPAP life now that I'll have to keep adjusting my mask forever? If so, will I eventually just adjust it in my sleep? 

I fear that I've traded apneas interrupting my sleep for mask leaks interrupting my sleep. Attached is a recent night.

All experiences would be helpful!

[mesenteria]

Hi, and welcome.  As you appear to appreciate, this has a moderately-to-severely steep learning curve.  Not just the about the condition and its treatment, but how to actually manage yourself and the new procedures and application. 

I had to learn how to sleep so that my medium nasal cushion wouldn't be displaced by my side-sleeping and my pillow.  When on my back, my jaw falls.  No matter how I'm sleeping, my lips go slack and air rushes through my nose and right back out again with minimal, if any, therapy.  So, I have to tape over my lips.

Your headgear stretches.  More at first, then less as the physical limits of some of the material reaches them.  You'll have to keep adjusting your various straps until any leaking is so innocuous that you don't really notice....ideally when you sleep, anyway.

Higher pressures cause more leakage, as a general rule.  Many complain they have to cinch down their straps so tightly that they have pain, displaced jaws, compression sores, and so on.  Somewhere, somehow, there's a sweet spot with each type of mask.  If that sweet spot is still essentially a fail, then you must research, purchase, and trial one, two, or several other types.  Sorry, it's just a fact.

[Psychotech]

yes mask farts are common occurrence, it happens when you have oil/sebum on your skin, there are two solution to this
1) use an deep cleaning face wash to clean your skin/face before going to bed
2)tighten your mask a bit

[lindylou]

I feel like you do about this- so thanks for asking this question! I’ll await answers with interest.