Pillow amplifies mask noise

[timoteo]

I've been using a Phillips Respironics System One with a nasal pillow mask for years. I use a cpap pillow with the usual cutouts and like to sleep on my side. My cpap pillows (I have several) seem to significantly amplify any little noises my mask and any little leaks make. This is loud enough to annoy me and forces me into sleeping on my back.

My hose has little or no contact with the pillow and it doesn't matter whether the mask and hose hang over the pillow cutout or not. My pillow didn't used to be so noisy but as it gets squished down over time, the problem gets worse. I bought a new cpap pillow and tried to use it and it just makes the problem worse and i can't use it.

Last night I discovered that if i push my head into the pillow nose-first I can squirm around until I get little noise. That seems to jam the nasal pillow into my nostrils tightly and I guess it reduces any leakage around the edges of my nostrils. That isn't very comfortable, though. I have tried adjusting my mask so it fits loosely and have tried adjusting the mask until it's very tight but neither makes any difference.

Why is my pillow amplfying minor mask noises into louder noises and what do I do about it? I would love to be rid of this problem for good and be able to sleep! Any suggestions?

My mask is a Phillilps Nuance nasal pillow mask.

[ChicagoGranny]

So, the noise is because your pillows leak? Find your model nasal pillows on youtube and carefully watch three or four videos on fitting and adjusting. Pillows are among the easiest masks to use without leaking.

[timoteo]

I think that's the cause but I can't be sure. All I know is that sleeping on my side causes a lot of noise as I breathe - deeper-pitched noises like, say breathing through a mask, and higher pitched noises like squeaky, whiny noises like air leaking through a small opening.

I've used nasal pillows for many years and have fought this problem off and on for many years.

[Janknitz]

If you really like that mask, perhaps you need to try some white noise to mask the sound. Mask the mask noise!

I use inexpensive imitation sleep phones, basically a headband with embedded speakers over the ears that works by a Bluetooth connection to my smartphone. It's fairly flat and fits under my mask headgear. An added bonus is that I can use the headband as an eyeshade since we don't have blackout curtains in our room.

I like the sound of the human voice as my white noise, so I have a selection of calm podcasts that help me sleep--things without theme songs because the theme songs wake me. You can have relaxation music or sounds like a babbling brook (makes me need to urinate!), crackling fire, rainstorm with distant thunder, birdsong, etc--you can find these things free on the internet. My husband uses an app called "Calm". Most of the music and podcast apps have sleep timers that turn it off after incrementally lowering the volume after a certain amount of time, so you are not woken abruptly by sudden silence.

Some people run a fan in their room as their white noise.

[timoteo]

I already have a white noise machine running at night. Since I like to sleep on my side, I don't think headphones would work well. They wouldn't be comfortable between my head and my pillow and even if they were somehow, they'd probably come off in the night.

[chunkyfrog]

Maybe a pillow speaker would help.