Dreamwear FFM Help! My nose is inflating!

[Posey]

Hi CPAP users.
Last week I got a new Dreamwear FFM at my medical supply company. I have used the Mirage Quattro for years & was having increasing leaks with them. Sometimes the leaks would shut down the machine in the night so I took the S9 with me to get it checked out too. The supplier informed me she wasn't handling Resmed anymore!!! Then she fitted me with the Dreamwear FFM. It seemed nice enough at the store. I do have some allergies and stuffy nose almost all the time. 1st Night I put the mask on, adjusted to fit. Every inhale my nose felt like it was inflating. This went on and on. I tried opening my lips just a bit to get more air in my mouth but then I got leaks. I figured by daybreak my nose would be as big as a birthday balloon so I took it off and put my leaky Mirage Quattro back on. My bilevel rate is 13 and 6 so I don't think it would be that much of a problem. When I looked at the data I didn't have many leaks with the Dreamwear so I am going to give it another try. I've used CPAP for 6 years now and have 100% compliance. But I am tired now and grumpy. I can't sleep without my machine.

My question : has anyone else had this nose inflation problem? What if anything, did you do about it? Did that solve it?

[Julie]

Have you tried not using the humidifier at all sometimes? It's possible the ambient humidity where you live is adequate and the humidifier is adding too much, congesting you and you may not need the thing, or only need it sometimes, or only at a lower setting. It's not 'therapy', but a convenience for those who need it... many of us don't bother at all, or only at certain times of the year.

[Pugsy]

I used this mask for a while in a trial and I didn't experience my nose inflating.

I wonder if maybe your bilevel settings may be playing a part....6 exhale and 13 inhale...is that correct? Is it fixed or does it auto adjust? PS is 7...is that correct?

I have a suggestion to try just to see if PS is a factor....reduce the PS from 7 to 3 just to test things out. So 6 exhale and 3 PS equals 9 inhale. Just for a few minutes while awake and see what happens,.

[Posey]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have reduced the humidity since we've had wet weather for a few days.. I have had lots of dry mouth issues through the years
Our humidity isn't very high in this area (n. central Texas)

I'll reduce the PS & see how it does. I have never changed that setting before so I will see how it goes.
I took a benedryl so that should help with the allergies for the night. .
Thanks again. I'll let yall know how it goes..

[Posey]

Follow-up: Pugsy, I think it is auto adjust but not sure how to tell. I added a 20 minute ramp and lowered the Inhale pressure to 12. OA were .75 for the night but I did have leaks . Sleeyhead: Leak Rate, Rate of detected mask leakage (L/min) min.0.00, med 1.20, 95% 40.80, MAX 84.00. Sleepyhead also shows 21.549 % over leak redline. However this is an improvement over where I was a few days ago. One thing I had changed a few weeks ago was my pillow so I went back to the one I was using. I am going to read the posts here with tips for using the Dreamwear FFM.
One of the real "gotchas" with sleep apnea is that if you have problems with your CPAP, you are usually too dingy and tired to sort it out. Luckily I know where to get help- right here on the forum! Thanks a million folks!