Reviews of new AirFit P10 Resmed nasal pillow mask thread

[bavinck]

Maybe if more people try building their own swift p10 and reporting back positively those resmed spies will see the positive reports and make a change in the airfit p10....

[Loreena]

I don't know much about CPAP, but from a standpoint of not being able to tolerate a hair band? I'm not going to want this headgear to get any beefier. I like that it will regain it's original size with washing, too. So Resmed - just make different sized headgear, but please, please don't add anything to it!

You are my new best friend, Scooter "amazing woman" girl.

[Scootergirl]

I don't know much about CPAP, but from a standpoint of not being able to tolerate a hair band? I'm not going to want this headgear to get any beefier. I like that it will regain it's original size with washing, too. So Resmed - just make different sized headgear, but please, please don't add anything to it!

You are my new best friend, Scooter "amazing woman" girl.

LOL, thanks Loreena!

[Stormynights]

Remember those soft foam curlers that had the stiffer plastic that went through the center and around the foam to hold them in the hair? I had a thought that maybe that foam part could be split and put around the straps to adjust the fit for smaller heads. The straps are fine for me so I don't need to worry with it, but I just thought that this might be worth a try for someone with a small head size.

[RogerSC]

Maybe if more people try building their own swift p10 and reporting back positively those resmed spies will see the positive reports and make a change in the airfit p10....

Just now put it together, will be trying tonight. Plastic electrical tape would be better than scotch tape, though, due to more stickiness. Not sure the scotch tape won't slip on the silicone some during the night, I'll see *smile*. And not using the wraps, myself, unless they're absolutely needed. Just trying it without the wraps was fine. I laid in bed with it for a few minutes, felt fine and much quieter than what I'm used to. Hopefully the lack of noise won't keep me awake *smile*. I think that the AirFit Medium nasal pillow fits me a bit better than the Swift FX Medium, that's all to the good.

I agree, I keep mentioning that putting the AirFit P10 nosepiece on the Swift headgear would be a really good combination for ResMed. Who knows, some day they may hear about it and take the hint, you never know *smile*.

Edit: Just read that this stuff can glue to silicone: http://www.amazon.com/Devcon-12045-Prem ... B001005TX2. Or maybe a rubber band or rubber sleeve *smile*? We'll see, but doesn't hurt to have a plan B.

[dvejr]

I have used my new AirFit P10 for two nights now, and conclude that the AEIOMed Headrest is the best darned nasal pillow device ever. (The Headrest was also known once as the Everest, and was also sold by Invacare.)

The P10 is wonderfully lightweight. It has an elegant, minimalist design. In fact, there's almost nothing there - only a nasal pillow and an elastic to hold it against your nose. It is quiet, and barely seems to vent any air at all. So, what's not to like?

Two things for me -
1) the hose dangles off my face like an elephant's trunk, so I now have to worry about not getting tangled up in it when I roll over. Why is this not an issue on the Headrest? Because they were smart enough to run the hose basically straight up from the top of my head. I can roll and roll and the hose barely cares.
2) my nares hurt! The P10 elastic reaches gently (nice soft fabric) around my head and pulls the pillows up right up against my nose. If it is too loose, I leak, and if it is too tight, I hurt. Why is this not an issue on the Headrest? Because those designers use the straps to firmly anchor not the nasal pillows, but the forehead piece. The pillows are suspended gently from there, and adjust in two dimensions to find just the right amount of pressure against my nose.

Doug

[Pugsy]

I have used my new AirFit P10 for two nights now, and conclude that the AEIOMed Headrest is the best darned nasal pillow device ever. (The Headrest was also known once as the Everest, and was also sold by Invacare.)

Ahhhh...but the Headrest is no longer available though I do understand where you are coming from with your preference for it. We had a lot of very happy Headrest users who were unhappy when that mask was discontinued. Some stocked up with enough spares for life. Others weren't able to do that.

Have you looked at the TapPap? Check out link in my profile.

I did get a chance to try the Headrest for about a week. My own personal preference for much lighter on my head and face gear pretty much was the kiss of death for me because the Headrest was just WAY too much stuff on my head.
The need to vent the air upwards has never been an issue for me so even though it was nice...it wasn't any huge advantage to me.
Everyone has different preferences in what really trips their trigger in terms of what a mask will or will not do.

Since you have a strong preference for the Headrest I hope you were able to stock up on supplies. The headgear looked like it would last a long, long time and nasal pillows can do the same with common sense care.

[dvejr]

My second night with the AirFit was better than the first: before laying down I spent more time adjusting the straps, and I changed (nasal) pillow sizes. I know I'll get used to it.
Doug

[deerslayer]

I have used my new AirFit P10 for two nights now, and conclude that the AEIOMed Headrest is the best darned nasal pillow device ever. (The Headrest was also known once as the Everest, and was also sold by Invacare.)

The P10 is wonderfully lightweight. It has an elegant, minimalist design. In fact, there's almost nothing there - only a nasal pillow and an elastic to hold it against your nose. It is quiet, and barely seems to vent any air at all. So, what's not to like?

Two things for me -
1) the hose dangles off my face like an elephant's trunk, so I now have to worry about not getting tangled up in it when I roll over. Why is this not an issue on the Headrest? Because they were smart enough to run the hose basically straight up from the top of my head. I can roll and roll and the hose barely cares.
2) my nares hurt! The P10 elastic reaches gently (nice soft fabric) around my head and pulls the pillows up right up against my nose. If it is too loose, I leak, and if it is too tight, I hurt. Why is this not an issue on the Headrest? Because those designers use the straps to firmly anchor not the nasal pillows, but the forehead piece. The pillows are suspended gently from there, and adjust in two dimensions to find just the right amount of pressure against my nose.

Doug

Doug,
you're singin to the choir,
Sadly we must adapt & overcome(insert choice words here) & i wasn't about to "stock up" on the headrest !
Like you , my second & third nights were better with the airfit . Believe the headrest became extinct because in fact it was built to last, thus affecting manufacturer sales/turnover .
Mom would always tell me in her late years "it's a throw away world"...There's a lot of truth in that explanation Brother.
tim

[Pugsy]

FWIW guys...it was after the 4th night using the P10 that I as finally happy with the headgear and fit.
Remember I was coming from the Tap Pap with no headgear so the slightly taut headgear felt probably tighter than it really was.

Now I don't even notice the headgear. I am still using the P10 and haven't gone back to the Tap Pap just yet.
I have some dental issues (totally unrelated to the mouth guard) that makes it just a bit easier to just wear the P10.
A couple of my lower back molars (who were crowned probably 30 years ago) need some attention and I just haven't got around to dealing with it yet...big bucks that I don't have right now.

I really do like that quiet vent...sometimes my pressures reach 20 cm often enough that there's a noticeable reduction in the sound with the P10 that makes it especially nice in my situation.
More pressure simply means more vent noise and even though the noise of the Tap Pap wasn't huge...the P10 is pretty much silent even when I reach 20 cm.

[ems]

I actually heard my first leak noise with the Airfit this afternoon. During a short nap I heard this strange noise... it was so quiet that I didn't know what it was at first. I must have been having some really wild dreams - but hey... I was using my mask!

[KentuckyHoser]

If anyone on this thread that finds the AirFit too tight, I have a Nuance Pro I'm looking to trade. I love the Nuance and still use it, but it fits differently than the Pro. The Pro would be an awesome mask for someone with a head that's bigger than mine. It's just too durned big for me.

[HerbM]

1) For you folks trying different pillow sizes on the P10: I have tried different sizes and switched maybe a dozen times or more; sometimes for cause and sometimes just as an experiment.

IMO: Small gives be best numbers and "fit" but is not the most comfortable. Large is comfortable but more likely to dislodge. Medium fits ok and does ok.

Generally I go with the Small these last weeks even though my first week was almost all on the Large.

Point? Don't be reticent about trying the pillow sizes you "think" are incorrect. Try them all. Get used to the mask and try them all again just to be sure.

2) The lightweight pigtail hose on the P10 is perfect FOR ME -- I run it down my body to about my stomach and hook it up to the machine hose which then drapes over my body just below the ribs. I don't usually even notice its there.

Facing the machine, the machine hose goes over a body pillow I use.


FYI: I spent years working as a commercial diver and "managing my hose" while otherwise occupied with work so my mileage likely varies.

[RogerSC]

I put together the AirFit P10 nosepiece and the Swift FX headgear at the beginning of the week, and am still using it. I was a little worried at first that it would slip apart some while I was sleeping since the scotch tape doesn't stick to the silicone, but has not done so yet. Feels pretty comfortable, leaks and AHI have been low. And much quieter, hard to get used to just hearing my cpap breathing without the vent air flow disruption and noises, but I'm up for it *smile*.

Guess I'll keep going with it and see what happens. I expect to go back to the Swift FX at some point, not totally comfortable with a makeshift thing like this, but not sure when. This is not a great week, the cat has been waking me up every morning when she's ready rather than having normal wakeups. Sometimes I get back to sleep, sometimes not. Still, even with that, feeling okay, just a bit more tired than normal. Hoping that next week, when my family returns, things will go back to normal and the cat will go bug someone else in the morning *smile*. Since I'm the last one here to get up in the morning, seems likely. If I thought that I could get up and put the cat out and then get back to sleep, I'd do that, but once I'm up, I'm up.

Anyways, I'm pretty happy with how well this makeshift thing is working. Really wish that ResMed would get smart and revitalize their Swift FX business by combining the AirFit P10 and Swift FX features, just take the best of each. Or make Swift FX-style headgear available for the P10. Either way would be fine with me.

[robysue]

Finally was eligible for a new mask this week. So I've now got a P10. Last night was night 1 with the P10. There are a few things that I love about this mask and things that I'm decidedly undecided about.

Best feature is undoubtedly the diffused exhaust vents. No more jet stream blowing on my chest. But as some others have commented, my lips felt more of the exhaust venting with the P10 and there's some decided chapping going on with my lips right now. Don't know if it's the mask or not, but chapped lips have been an Energizer Bunny problem for me ever since I started 3.5 years ago.

Headgear? It's a mixed report. The cloth straps are comfortable on my skin and hair. But even though I have a SMALL head, this head gear triggered some real piggy nose problems. And yes, I know about spreading the straps out vs. keeping them closer together. But it took a long time to figure out where the straps should be to minimize the piggy nose. I wear my Swift FX extremely loose, and quite frankly it almost doesn't matter where the Swift FX's straps wind up on my head---the mask still works for me. So pulling on the FX is much much easier than pulling on the P10.

The semi-rigid plastic frame thingies that are inside the fabric headgear bothered me at the beginning of the night, but they bugged me less than I afraid they would. Still, they are a potential long term problem. I don't really see the point in making them so long and they've got the potential (in my case) to become nothing more than poky irritants even though they are wrapped inside the cloth headgear.

I had some real difficulties getting the pillows to align correctly with my nostrils. And the slightly too snug headgear seemed to be pulling too much of the nasal pillows into my nose. And tugging on the pillows to allow them to re-seat didn't seem to work as as it does when the nasal pillows are at the wrong angle in my Swift FX. I'm not sure, but perhaps part of this problem is caused by the fact that the P10's pillows + cradle are a lot bigger than just the pillows on the FX even though the mask's headgear is smaller and more minimal than the FX's. And the plastic arms with the permanent bend in them seems to control how the pillows rest against the nostrils in a much more authoritarian way than the FX's totally soft straps do. In other words, those plastic strips on the P10 feel a bit like an underwire bra for my nose.

The pillow cradle. The fact that it's made out of very hard plastic is a bit of a concern. But a bigger (and unexpected) concern is simply the shear SIZE of the pillow cradle. The hard plastic didn't bother me too much last night, but the size of the cradle felt enormous compared to the size of a Swift FX pillow. Everytime I was awake enough to realize anything, that pillow cradle felt really awkward and it seemed like I had to be much more careful how I was burying my nose into my pillow last night. The FX's pillows are completely soft and smooshy and small and my bed pillow doesn't tend to knock them out of place. It felt as times that the pillow cradle was some catching on something and not yielding at all when it "caught" on whatever it was "catching on. And the "not yielding feeling" made it feel as though the mask was in much more danger of being pushed off my face. (The leak line, however, is pretty much just like the one I get with my FX.)

Rainout at the mask level. This is a major potential concern. Padacheek's FX pillow cozies essentially cover the entire pillow and they do minimize condensation in my FX pillows. They also keep the pillow barrel from touching my upper lip directly and they simply feel "cozy". When I first put the P10 on, I immediately missed the feeling of the barrel cozy. I was able to figure out a way to attach a very worn out Padacheek FX pillow cozy to the P10's pillow without covering the vents. But that also meant the whole back side of the mask was uncovered and exposed to the cold bedroom air. And I did wake up this morning to wet nostrils from rainout and lots more water droplets visible in the nasal pillows than I see in my Swift FX.

The short pigtail hose without the pivot at the mask end? The jury is still out on this one. I don't run my hose over my head, but I do hug it. And with the FX, I tend to twist the hose to get the whole hose---both the pigtail short hose and the long main hose---to fold exactly where I want them to be for hugging purposes. And as flexible as this hose is, it did cause problems finding a good way to hug the hose last night. More importantly, however, is that the hose seems to be made out of awfully thin plastic and I'm quite worried that this hose is going to prematurely tear at the mask end because of the normal twisting my hose gets at night as I move around in bed. It just doesn't seem to be as durable as the heavier FX hose.

For now, I'm planning on continuing to use the P10 for several more days before doing anything else. Pugsy's FX headgear + P10 pillows is something that I intend to try at some point, but not right away. And while I think that overall, this mask is going to be a real winner for Resmed, I'm not sure it is going to displace the FX as my mask of choice.

My perfect mask? Right now it would be the Swift FX combined with a simple diffuser cap to place on top of those damn vents in the elbow. Adding something that looks and fits like the diffuser cap on my hubby's Eson nasal mask would make the Swift FX into about as perfect of a mask as I can invison.