Should I use a chinstrap with an FFM?

General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
User avatar
Gekko
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:16 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: Should I use a chinstrap with an FFM?

Post by Gekko » Wed Apr 21, 2010 7:10 pm

Must admit, I'm very disappointed with my chin strap. It's the SleepTec one (looks like it's made from wetsuit material). It worked reasonably well the first night I wore it (a week ago), but now it seems to have stretched, and I find that every night, I have to tighten it more. It's now got to the point where I feel no resistance at all when I put it on and open my mouth. While it was only $30 (AU), I still feel like it was a complete waste of money.

My AHI has been steadily climbing each night (from a low of 4-5) and is now sitting at around 17-18. I've noticed the daytime sleepiness is returning. I wonder why I'm getting such poor numbers with a full face mask.

I tried uping the pressure from 14 to 15 and it seems to have made no difference to the AHI number.

I've also played around with the humidity setting. I was at 3 and it seemed OK. On advice from the forum, I went to 4, but got rainout, so went back to 3. Then I tried 2 and that seemed to work better for the first night, but now it seems to be worse. ARGH! I can't make sense of this... sometimes high humidity is better, sometimes it's worse.

The machine keeps telling me that my "leak" is 0%, which is a bit strange, considering the fact that sometimes I can feel some small leaks around my nose area. I assume the machine is programmed to only classify large leaks as "leaks".

My next step is to try a MAD. I have one I bought a while ago, which helped a little as far as snoring was concerned, but I stopped using it because it didn't "cure" my snoring.

Anyone here got any suggestions?