air flow through your mask?

hello everyone, new to this forum but have been using cpap for about 3 years. my question is....all the previous time i have been using either the mirage or ultra mirage masks. this may sound odd, but i could feel the air circulating around my nose, even though there we no mask leaks. took a while to get used to, but cpap has worked wonderfully for me. i have now switched to an mirage activa, great fit, never leaks, but now i can't "feel" the air on my nose. makes me wonder... if the flow through the nose is supposed to help keep the passages open, but you can't feel that flow, is it working properly? anyone have this experience before?

Hi smauk,

I've noticed the same thing you're talking about - a feeling of air moving or swirling lightly inside two of my favorite masks - the ResMed Ultra Mirage FF (a "small") and to a lesser extent, also with my ResMed Activa ("shallow" size). That's with no mask leaks at all, just as you say.

There was no feeling of air movement within other masks I've used or tried. I just chalked it up to the greater "roominess" (which I like) inside those two ResMed masks - at least on me - and I pay no attention to it now. I'm no expert, but I don't think that effects the pressure of the air going into our noses at all. It's still being contained within the mask. I believe we're still getting our full treatment pressure regardless of whether we feel a slight air movement on our faces or not - as long as there are no leaks, of course. Just my non-professional opinion.

rested gal,

thanks for your info. i was wondering if i was the only one experiencing that. i liked the feeling of the air "swirling" actually. just thought maybe the activa wasn't working for me since i couldn't feel anything.

I use the ResMed Activa and I don't feel air swirling either. Sometime I wake up and forget that its on. Great mask.

Judy

Make that 4 of us.

My Activa is so comfortable that I think my machine is off when I wake up. If you take a deep breath it causes the machine/mask to compensate and you can feel the mask and pressure again. It may just be that you become desensitized to the mask and pressure during the night.

My perception of the swirling sensation is that it is caused by shallow breathing during sleep thus less variation of the in and out flow.