Howdy! Recently diagnosed, now being treated.

[griff0n]

I'm glad you brought up the red mark from the Resmed Airfit F20. I also have the Airfit F20 and I have the red mark on my nose. Right now, I just cover it with makeup. I think it may be from rubbing and movement of the mask at night because my mask is super comfortable for me and I don't feel much pressure on the bridge of my nose. The mark itself is only noticeable when I press on it, and even then I wouldn't classify it as painful. Before I read your post I was planning to try kiddy bandaids and see if that will clear it up. I suspect that they won't make me break out or be hard to take off. If that doesn't work I might try the moleskin idea. The only concern I have is that being acne prone I may break out from an adhesive that wasn't designed with faces in mind. Sorry, I don't have answers for you, just commiseration.

I definitely recommend using a bandaid, it actually helped me out quite a bit. I bought a box of 100 (med sized?) bandaids from CVS (their brand, in fact). The Moleskin suggestion was pretty good, too, but it actually hurts to take it off unlike a bandaid (which doesn't), so...

[Pugsy]

It appears you are in auto bilevel mode but the settings are 14 EPAP minimum with PS of 4 and IPAP max of 18 which makes it essentially functioning in fixed bilevel mode.

If the bulk of your AHI on the high AHI nights is OA or hyponea..you need to at least let the machine go higher than 18 if it needs to.

Right now your therapy is sub optimal...need some slight pressure adjustments.

[griff0n]

If I change it to auto from fixed (or what have you), will it also help with the leaks? I'm guessing I'll have to either talk to my Sleep Doctor about this or dig in to adjusting cpap machine myself, yeah?

[Pugsy]

To be honest...no... changing the max IPAP so the machine will vary the pressure upwards as needed is unlikely to help with the leaks.
And to be more honest might even make it worse if the leaks are related to pressure and not mask fit or movement.

If you aren't comfortable changing the pressure settings yourself...then yes you would need to have a chat with your doctor and get him to tell the DME to make the change.
Now if you are comfortable doing it yourself....welcome to the dark side.
The machine will only go up if it feels like it has a good reason to increase that pressure and only when needed.
If it was me I would just set the max IPAP to 25 and let the machine sort it out but then I have been a member of the dark side for nearly 9 years now.

I don't use a full face mask so I am not much help with ideas on how to fix leaks but if you can't get them under control despite trying a bunch of stuff...I would be trying a new/different full face mask (assuming you don't want to try a nasal mask) if it were me.
I don't believe in spending weeks and months trying to make a mask work when I can't seem to ever get a decent seal with it.
I would be moving on to a different mask.

[griff0n]

Pugsy, thank you for speaking with me. I appreciate what you're trying to say to me.

As of right now, I have some double sided mouth guards coming my way from this martial arts website I found. Ha! My jaw does fall back a lot, and I am not sure the chinstrap is really helping. I also have a new trucool memory foam pillow coming my way, too. So maybe those things will help?

I am heading over to my DME on Thursday with my current mask to talk about the seal and to potentially check out other masks. I think you're right. If I had of known what I do now, I would have insisted they let me check out their mask selection. Currently, I need a full face mask because of the chronic nasal congestion (my glands up there are swollen up ther), and my Doctor recommended I try using Flonase or Nasacort before bed time until I can get my nose fixed. I do want to try using nasal pillows someday.

I have been considering going to the Dark Side, actually. I don't really feel like messing around talking to my sleep doctor when I can just learn how to do all this myself. But I have been irrationally worried about repercussions and feeling ignorant.