My mask is waking me

[CMAmedchick]

I've been using my CPAP for 11 days now. I'm feeling much better than before I started treatment, but I seem to have developed a new problem with my mask. I have a fixed pressure of 8cm. If I loosen the mask, it leaks. If it tighten it even a little bit to stop the leak, it causes this pushing motion against my face once my pressure reaches max and that's what it waking me up. I've been having to stop the machine and start it over to restart the ramp so I can fall asleep again. Sometimes I can sleep through the "pushing" thing, but it's becoming bothersome and some apneas/hypopneas are slipping through since I'm having to restart my machine so much.

Anyone else experienced this?

[kteague]

I'll let other full face mask users respond to the mask issues. I just want to put out a caution about the ramp feature. If you fall asleep during ramp time, you are not at a therapeutic treatment level. Early on I was hitting the ramp and starting over a lot each night. Problem was I fell right back asleep for a few minutes then woke up and hit the ramp again, so most of my night was spent in ramp. My doc had told me whenever I woke up to just hit the ramp to go back to sleep. Guess he didn't think I would do it so often, because he never cautioned me against overuse. Not good at all. If you are going to need to start over a lot a night, maybe make sure your ramp time is short and you're not sleeping at a low pressure.

[CMAmedchick]

After I posted, I started to think that it might be my EPR setting. I might try playing around with that some to see if it makes a difference. I usually don't start the ramp over unless I'm fully awake. Thank you for the information. So far my experience with CPAP has been great. I went from an untreated AHI of 52 to 1.6 to .65. That's a win for me, but of course I want to get the best sleep I can.