Sleepyhead Says 'Way Too Much Leaking!"

According to Sleepyhead software my mask is leaking way too much. It suggested I talk to my CPAP advisor. My pressure is 9. When I wake up I don't have a dry mouth or sore throat anymore. I've been using nasal saline spray and the AYR gel. This hits hard because I finally found a mask that I barely feel on my face. It is very comfortable. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Just exactly how much is "way to much"? I have seen that wording and I only spent 5% of the night in large leak territory and the large leak territory that I hit was 27 L/min for a little while.
ResMed machine...the official line is at 24 L/min...27 is barely crossed the line...I didn't give it a second thought.

SleepyHead's wording doesn't tell us the best or whole story.

Let's see just how bad it really was by evaluating the leak graph itself....then we worry or not.

Hey Pugsy! I think the leak is bad. I saw the graph. I will try to get a graph up this weekend. The last several days the leak has been so bad that I run out of water before the night was through. I will wake up occasionally with it leaking but it is so much easier to fix than the nasal mask was. I just pull it away and reset it. I am grateful that I found a mask that works. I just hope that I can get it to quit leaking so much.

You may be mouth breathing/leaking.
While I will let a little slide...we can't let a lot slide without trying to reduce the amount depending on just how far a person goes into large leak territory. Barely into large leak territory probably isn't all that harmful to therapy as long as a person is sleeping well but a prolonged period of time deep into large leak territory isn't good because too deep and we can't trust what the machine is reporting.

Let's take a close look at the actual detailed graph before we start worrying about what might need to be done about it.

My leak graphs are rarely "pretty" and often show a lot of movement but I sleep well and feel decent during the day and the leaks (where ever they are from) don't ever wake me up. Yeah, sometimes I go into large leak territory but most of the time it's just barely over 24 L/min and if I really go deep (like over 35 L/min) I don't usually stay there long. I don't worry about 5 or 10 minutes here or there...but I would worry about 2 or 3 hours deep into large leak territory.

Here's the deal with these machines...yes we have to have some sort of line in the sand to avoid in terms of leak but it's not like 1 L/min over that line the leak totally trashes the entire night's therapy. It's one of those things that gets worse the farther we go. My personal experience with ResMed...the machine seems to still respond and report accurately with leaks up to 30 L/min...between 30 and 35 L/min leak things start getting iffy and the machine seems to have trouble identifying what it senses and I would get a lot of "unknown apneas"...over 35 L/min and things really seem to go to hell...the machine doesn't respond and doesn't flag anything and I am pretty sure that something happened.
I happened to have a night where I could actually see the progression and results of large leak which made it fairly easy to evaluate.

Also remember...that 95% number means at OR BELOW that number for 95% of the night...so a 95% number of 28 L/min doesn't mean that's where a person was at all night...gotta remember the "or below" part of the definition. That's why when things with leaks look ugly in terms of numbers that I suggest that we look closer to see if they really are as bad as the numbers might point to.

As with any leak though ...even if it is tiny...if it wakes a person up and affects how we feel during the day...it needs fixing but more because it disturbs sleep than the impact on the therapy itself.

Sometimes we have to make compromises.
7 hours of good sleep with maybe 30 minutes of ugly leak but the person feels really good otherwise with a so and so mask is better than 7 hours with no ugly leaks but crappy sleep because of discomfort or just annoying things about another mask.

So when you have time let's look at those detailed reports and decide just how bad things are since you really like this mask otherwise.

My sleepy head says that every morning.

Sometimes it's laughable. Sometimes it's a major issue.

I'll be spying on the thread to see if I can learn something.

One night last week I had two leaks of almost an hour. That was bad.

Last night Sleepyhead said the same thing (leaking way too much). I had one leak for five minutes. I can live with that.

My sleepyhead data is confusing, there are two lines on the leak graph and I can't tell which one "matters".

Good luck figuring out your leak issue.

One night my mask leaked for 41% of the time and I had an AHI of 27. Talk about worthless.

Sorry to hijack, this topic peaked my interest.

NMchop wrote:My sleepyhead data is confusing, there are two lines on the leak graph and I can't tell which one "matters".

Top line for Respironics users...that leak line is total leak and total leak is the mask's expected vent rate plus any excess leak.
Bottom line for Respironics users...that leak line is an approximation of excess leak only similar to what ResMed users will see on their leak graphs. Mark (SleepyHead's creator) had some difficulty with the calculation side of things for figuring excess leak only because of the variability of vent rate with pressure changes which was difficult with the auto adjusting pressure mode.
I usually tell people with Respironics machines and using SleepyHead...just keep and eye on the top leak line and watch for when/if the machine actually flags a Large Leak and use that top leak as a guide.
Example...when I was using apap with my pressures I might have a top leak line (total leak) of 85 L/min and not get a large leak flag but when I hit 90 L/min I would get a large leak flag.

It's harder to see when trying to do the same thing with the bottom leak line and it may not be all that accurate but you can do the same thing with the bottom leak line.
In general when we talk about Respironics leak numbers we are talking "total leak" but a person can use excess only as a guide once they figure out where the line is.

Total leak numbers can never be 0.0 because of the vent rate even if there is zero excess leak.

So you can use either as a guide as long as you understand what you are seeing and where large leak territory begins with either choice for preferred viewing evaluations. I like the top leak line myself..it's easier to see what it is doing.