[Product Review] Resmed AirFit P10

[Galactus]

Personally, I don't mind the 'stick' whether a new or old phenomenom.

Stick prevents movement, movement causes irritation.

I have learned a lot of good stuff about the P10 from you specifically and some others in general, but in this case specifically I find that the stick causes me paid. For some reason on the first day I notice the pillows stick they irritate me. No that's really not right... hmmm in words it's hard to explain, it seems that at the bottom inside of my nostrils they seem to stick, and that morning when I remove the mask it almost pulls the skin off the inside of my nose and then there's almost no going back for me. Just my experiences for what they're worth.

[retired_guy]

... and that morning when I remove the mask it almost pulls the skin off the inside of my nose.........

Eeeeewwwwwww.

[Galactus]

... and that morning when I remove the mask it almost pulls the skin off the inside of my nose.........

Eeeeewwwwwww.

My thoughts exactly

Thanks for the sentiment!

[YetiHead]

The past couple nights i've noticed that it was increasingly more difficult to get a good seal on my left nostril, it took a considerably longer time to position the pillow on that side to keep if from leaking.. it seemed it had to be in the "just right" position and couldn't move at all, or it would leak like crazy.. frustrating to say the least.
i chalked it up to being almost 2 months old, and the silicon getting flimsy.. or something along those lines.. My DME has already got a new set in the mail to me.. so i wasn't terribly worried about it and was "just going to stick it out" until the new set arrived.

I was washing the pillows yesterday, and looking straight into the ends, noticed that one side had a "double seal" system and the other did not.. further investigation shows that i booby trapped myself when cleaning, and somehow folded the inner seal on the left side backwards.. after fixing this little issue.. back to zero leaks..

[DeepBreathing]

I've just had a week on the P10... I found I was always getting congested with the Quattro Air, as well as a leak rate which was annoyingly high.

The good: No congestion! Having the air blowing directly into the nostrils cleans the pipes out beautifully.

The bad: Leaks! Constant, irritating, never-ending leaks. I tried small, medium and large pillows - the small were the best fit. But I got woken repeatedly with the mask slipping just down from my nostrils and blowing air in my face. No amount of re-positioning the hose or fiddling with the stupid head band would prevent these leaks. Red frowny-face every morning.

The stupid head-band. What a crock. Nothing more to say.

The noise - inhale, exhale - every breath was loud. No such problem with the FFM.

Anyhow, the P10 has gone back into its box and I'm back to using the Quattro Air - last night was bliss.

[TyroneShoes]

I went from Swift FX to AirFit P10.

There are plenty of great things to report, but they are already knowns which have been reported here.

Kudos to them for all of the improvements, but it might finally be time to concentrate on what has yet to be improved.

I think they really might need to rethink the headband as to adjustability. One size does not fit all, regardless of the weight and comfort improvements to the band. So there may have been steps in the right direction, but at the expense of some in possibly the wrong direction.

The hard nosepiece seems to mean that the entire assembly has less give than the FX, because on the FX everything is the soft plastic, and on the P10 it is just the front half. While that makes it easier to keep clean (just detach and rinse) it seems to be less forgiving, especially if the strap seems too tight and can't be loosened. But I think this was on purpose, as it will hold its integrity better and probably give fewer pillow-induced leaks. So maybe that was a trade-off of a bit of comfort in the interest of better leak performance.

It is pretty easy to figure out why air does not blow out the C02 relief valve; If you take the nosepiece out and try to blow or suck air through the vent (from the front) it is nearly impossible, the tiny holes creating such a Venturi effect as to nearly keep any air from escaping. While that seems like an improvement as far as having the thing not blow on you all night, it makes me wonder if the C02 relief is really working as it should.

It may actually work better for a wide range of pressures, because at low pressure the Venturi effect will be less, allowing a larger vent rate, while at higher pressures it will interfere more with the vent rate, so that the vent rate will stay essentially the same at all pressures (and C02 only needs to be vented at whatever volume is exhaled, which does not change with EPAP/IPAP pressures) so if they used the smaller holes to do that, it has to be a success, only qualified by whether it actually vents C02 properly, which is immediately in doubt once you try to blow through the vent a couple of times.

It is almost as if the vent is almost completely non-functional, and just a cosmetic nod to the legacy venting on earlier models. Or maybe they discovered that C02 venting just isn't as important as everyone thought it was, and they don't vent it as much as they used to. If so, that's a little scary.

On balance, a step above the FX. I'll keep trying it and the FX is probably now just gone to backup status.

[Galactus]

I've just had a week on the P10... I found I was always getting congested with the Quattro Air, as well as a leak rate which was annoyingly high.

The good: No congestion! Having the air blowing directly into the nostrils cleans the pipes out beautifully.

The bad: Leaks! Constant, irritating, never-ending leaks. I tried small, medium and large pillows - the small were the best fit. But I got woken repeatedly with the mask slipping just down from my nostrils and blowing air in my face. No amount of re-positioning the hose or fiddling with the stupid head band would prevent these leaks. Red frowny-face every morning.

The stupid head-band. What a crock. Nothing more to say.

The noise - inhale, exhale - every breath was loud. No such problem with the FFM.

Anyhow, the P10 has gone back into its box and I'm back to using the Quattro Air - last night was bliss.

As we all know by now I'm a big fan of the P10. Having said that, my interest is not to promote the P10 at all costs but to be as helpful as I can be to others. Since you indicate that you like the nasal pillow design above the ffm you might want to give the Nasal FX a try, the pillows were a different design and the headgear was adjustable. It was heavier than the P10 which I disliked. But it also had a front swivel which I did like. It could solve your problem and give you a better nights sleep. Then there is also the PilairoQ which looks to me to be somewhere between a P10 and a Swift and that might also do the job for you as it is a yet a third type of the nasal pillows but seems to have a firmer nose piece to push it in place. Anyway hope that some of that might help you. I could personally not do my therapy if a FFM was my only option. Even the nasal mask was really very hard for me to tolerate. The pillows were a saving grace for me and I'm not sure what I might have done if they weren't an option.

[TyroneShoes]

The swivel, which on the Swift FX also contained the C02 release valve, had two problems:

1) it made it difficult to direct the exhaust somewhere where it was not bothersome. So you had to manage that.
2) if it got turned around the wrong way, it made it feel like it was pushing the mask towards you at an angle. So you also had to manage that.

The P10 eliminates the first issue completely, and the fact that the hose is much more flexible (compare the two by trying to create the lowest-diameter bend in each) mostly eliminates the second issue, just not completely.

So once again, two steps forward; one step back. The next model, IMHO, should reintroduce the swivel, but hopefully a ball swivel rather than the right-angle swivel of the FX.

There is just one little problem with that, which is that I am not the guy who makes these decisions, and the guy who does, is probably the same guy responsible for all of the steps backward (as well as forward) in the P10.

Maybe if that guy actually wore the damned thing for a few nights, he could come to some of the same no-brainer instant realizations that the rest of us encounter every night.

[Eurika]

I have the P10, Nuance and the Pilairo. I really like the P10 for comfort and fit, but get leaks during the night, I must dislodge the pillows when moving about, the Nuance is also very comfortable and I get fewer leak episodes, and the Pilairo is the best from the leak point of view but slightly less comfortable.
I keep interchanging the masks and seem to find myself using the P10 more.

To be honest all three are good pillow masks and I could live with any of them exclusively, as I don't notice that much difference!

I guess us newbies are really lucky to have such a great choice of masks compared to the early users, we don't know how lucky we are.

[DeepBreathing]

.... Since you indicate that you like the nasal pillow design above the ffm ...

I didn't mean to give that impression. I'd be quite happy using a FFM all the time, except that they tend to leak a lot at higher pressures (I'm always in the high teens / low twenties). I gave the P10 a go, but found it actually leaked very substantially worse that the Quattro Air, and also seemed to be operating at a higher pressure (which probably didn't help with the leaks). On the plus side, it was very good at eliminating congestion.

Despite the best efforts of the Mad Monk's government, we still have a pretty good health system here in Oz - in all things except sleep apnea. Health insurance only provides a small rebate against the cost of a machine (typically $500) and nothing against masks, accessories or consumables. So I won't be able to try the various other pillows types you mentioned. I'll stick with my Quattro Air, which always gives me a smiley face (despite the occasional leak) and AHIs typically around 1.0 or below.