Ultra Mirage Full Face Mask

Greetings All,

I was wondering if anyone out there has encountered a similar situation that might be able to give me a good tip.

I've been using the Ultra Mirage for the past few days due to my nose being closed thanks to the pollen season. Yesterday when I put the mask on to sleep and turned on the CPAP it sounded loud and the mask didn't inflate as much as it normally would. I checked around the edges for air escaping but there was none. I tried to sleep but after 10 minutes the CPAP shut down, as it would if the mask had fallen off.

I gave up on it and slept au naturell. In the morning I examined the mask but was unable to find an obvious defect.

As you may know the Ultra Mirage, like many masks, has a safety vent in the inlet which closes when the CPAP pressure is one and opens when it turns off. This prevents you from being unable to breathe if the electricity were to fail. I think that my vent remained open. It is the only explanation.

I took the whole mask apart, even took out the vent membrane and it all looked to be in ship shape. I put it all back together again.

Does anyone know anything about this?

Thanks,

Dave

I know one time my hose was not on straight on the water tank? Air was leaking around the edge of it. Just a thought. Larry...

Did you try your other nasal mask to see if your machine would work?

Greetings and thanks for the responses. I did check the hose connection to the machine and it was fine. I finally switched to the nasal mask in desperation and had no problems with it for the rest of the night. Strangely enough I just tested the machine with my Hybrid mask to see if that might be a solution for tonight and the same thing happened as well. I have a Respironics M-Seriers APAP. The blue lights start flashing and shortly thereafter it shuts down. At first I thought it was the Ultra Mirage, but if the same thing is happening with the Hybrid, it might be the fault of the machine.

Dave

Some additonal data:

I just upped the pressure on the APAP making the starting pressure 10 instead of 6 as it had been. The mask works fine now. For some reason the safety vent in the elbow wouldn't close at the lower pressure. This has never happened in the past. I've used FF masks at very low pressures with no problem. If anyone has some insight into this it would be appreciated.

Dave

dkeat! Good to "see" you.

I guess I'd check the "Auto Off" setting in the setup menu of your machine. Set "Auto Off" to "off." I think keeping that setting "off" will prevent the machine from automatically shutting down in the presence of a large leak. Like the kind of leak that would be flowing out of a Full Face mask if the safety valve wouldn't close, the way you described it not closing. Even low pressure really should close that valve. That's odd that it didn't.

I'm sure you've already checked the power cord connection and all cord connections to be sure they are well seated.

Hi RG, good to you too!

Thanks for the suggestion. Maybe time for a new mask. I have a sensitive nose bridge anyway and I see that in the intervening years Respironics put out a FF gel mask. Have you tried it?

Dave