What causes you to take off your mask?

[Bearcat42]

I cant seem to get over 4-5 hours of sleep each night. I consistantly keep taking off my mask and I dont know why. Is it my subconscience mind telling me that I have had enough sleep so I take it off? I want to sleep longer but just cant seem to get over that hurdle of 4-5 hours. I havent been at this long enough to know what is going on. I dont know if I need to make some subtle changes like different pillows or what. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Sleepy Boy]

I took mine off because it would be leaking (Quattro) around the corners. It would wake me up, so rather than start fiddlin' with it, I just took it off...

[Bearcat42]

Yes, I have noticed mine doing that too. It is always around the sides or the lower corners and it does wake me up. Hmmm. I have thought about going to an Activa nasal mask with a pap cap to eliminate some of the surface area thus maybe stopping some of my mask leak issues. My numbers look pretty good as far as mask leaks go but it still wakes me for some reason. But what I cant understand is why I cant seem to fix it then go back to sleep instead of just taking the thing off.

[yardbird]

If you tell yourself before you go to sleep that you're going to fix it and not take it off... sometimes you can train your "sleepy consciousness" to not take it off.

Sometimes though, it's just hard to fix and you get frustrated. When that happens to me I switch masks and go back to sleep. I'm in the process of trying to tame the Hybrid right now. I guess that adjusting rather than removing the mask is built in at this point (been on CPAP over 10 years now), but I can still get to a point where a little tug here or there isn't going to do it any more and I may have gotten the adjustment really far out of whack and I know I'm going to have to start over.... so then I remove the mask and put on the ComfortLite2 or the Swift LT and go back to sleep.

[NEEDSTOSLEEP]

I have the same problem. I think I am half awake and so I take the uncomfortable thing off. Mostly my mouth is dried out.

[Billy6]

>>>What causes you to take off your mask?>>.
I'm really bad on the phone if I dont take it off

[Gerald]

Bearcat........

Based on my own experiences....and reading what others have said on this forum.....I think the subconscious is the culprit.

It simply is not convinced yet that you need CPAP therapy.

You've got to be convinced all the way down to your little toenails that CPAP therapy is vital to your survival. If your subconscious holds the least little bit of doubt, it'll make you take the mask off in the middle of the night.

Gerald

[OwlCreekObserver]

What causes me to take off my mask is usually sunrise and the sound of birds chirping outside my window.

But seriously, I've been at this for about three years now and I think I got past the mask removal stuff after just a few weeks. That's not to say that I don't occasionally wake up with mask leaks, desert mouth, or some other source of irritation. Let's face it, having a mask strapped to your face all night isn't a happy experience for most of us. It's annoying, often uncomfortable and not something that we would choose to do if there was a reasonable alternative. It's a wonder that we get any sleep at all.

At least a couple of times a year I'll go through a few nights with insomnia so I'm all too familiar with those four hours of sleep that you described. Since I'm now retired, it's no longer a big deal, but I've found that routinely taking a couple of Tylenol PMs at bedtime seems to even out my sleep patterns. You might give that a shot.

OCO

[Uncle_Bob]

I cant seem to get over 4-5 hours of sleep each night. I consistantly keep taking off my mask and I dont know why. Is it my subconscience mind telling me that I have had enough sleep so I take it off? I want to sleep longer but just cant seem to get over that hurdle of 4-5 hours. I havent been at this long enough to know what is going on. I dont know if I need to make some subtle changes like different pillows or what. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I used to take my mask off and i put it down to too low a pressure, i was titrated at 10cm and the doc had me start off at 7cm. Now i'm around 11-12 and I do not remove my mask anymore. You might want to check with the doctor and he might adjust your pressure.
Other than that you could just check that your mask is comfortable and not too tight. If leaks are a problem you might need to try a different mask.
I slept 3-4 and 4-5 hours during my first month of getting used to this and according to the more experinced CPAPers here this is quite common.

[5aces]

Last night ,I yanked the hose out from the Swift LT-the smaller hose with the tape around it,while semi-conscious.

Wondered why I did it too.

I like to breathe but "I hate CPAP" ran through my mind...

[Juliebove]

Sometimes it's just annoyance. Something won't feel right or it feels like it is leaking when I turn over or I just want to lie in a position that I can't with the mask on.

Then I take if off when my daughter's alarm goes off. We sleep in the same room. She has this cockamamie idea that if she sets her alarm for earlier than she needs to, she will get up on time. Well this doesn't work at all and I've beem setting it in increments closer and closer to the time she does need to get up. She will sleep right through the alarm and since I wear a full face mask, she can't hear me hollering through it. So off it comes. Then I usually go back to sleep for about a half an hour.

After I get her off to school, I usually go back to bed. Sometimes I put the mask on, sometimes I don't. And often the phone will keep ringing and ringing. Of course I have to take the mask off to answer. I won't even get into why I feel the need to answer it. I brought this up in another thread. But after taking the mask off so many times, I just give up and leave it off.

[solrwind]

I've only been at this for about two weeks now, but I find that I take my FF mask off because I think it's leaking. Typically, I roll over and hear air rushing from somewhere (not realizing that it's coming from the vent thingy (insert proper term here). I went from a nasal pillow mask to an ultra mirage and my leak rate has gone down quite a bit.

[Snorebert]

I have been on CPAP (this time around) for six months. It took time to adjust to using CPAP - mentally and physically. For me, it was a combination of buying myself a data capable machine and a new mask plus relaxing and listening to the CPAP and my breathing while falling asleep to try to get my brain to think that it is a good thing. And I now have almost the opposite problem - I have gotten so used to it all that leaks rarely wake me up now. I might try the alarm feature but am afraid that it will wake up the wife but not me. I'm sure that she will share the joy of hearing the alarm with me but I suspect that we will both be cranky in the morning.

[grandmma]

Even after all this time, I rarely if ever get 6 hours straight sleep, and NEVER more than that - usually 3-5. Woken by the need to go to the bathroom, leaks, mask discomfort issues. No matter which mask I use, I get leaks on and off through the night, I've (reluctantly) accepted that. I think it is due to my face being narrow but long. #s are good, so something's going right! At least it's not waking every hour or so, which it was for a long time during the first year or so.

NEVER take my mask off unless I'm conscious. NEVER until I'm ready to get up. Don't know why, just not able to do things unconsciously perhaps.

[taberge]

Well I have two reasons so to date. One is me getting up and going to the bathroom half asleep and returning to bed without putting the mask back on. And second, I sometimes have my nasal passages feel like they swell up and I have to remove the mask to breathe. I don't know why this happens because it seems they clear up after about an hour off the mask.