Nose ridge from mask

[wordgirl57]

Hello! My husband and I got our CPAPs this past Friday (me with a nasal mask, him with the nasal pillows), and I’ve spent the entire weekend reading through this site for tips and answers. First, thank you all so much for sharing your experiences; it’s such a huge help and we’ve already used several of the tips I’ve seen on here. I do have a question that I didn’t see covered exactly, however, so I thought I’d see if anyone had any information.

My nasal mask is a Respironics Easy Life (size S), and when I woke up Saturday morning I had a red mark a little more than half an inch below the bridge of my nose, just below the bone, from (as far as I can tell) the silicone flappy thing (technical term ) that seals the mask around my nose. From my forum reading, a red mark on the bridge of the nose appears to be fairly common, and I saw that a lot of people use something to cover the spot so it won't get more irritated. So Saturday night and Sunday, I cut down a Medipore tape bandage (I’m cursed with really sensitive skin, so I’m allergic to regular tape and bandaids), and put it over the red mark. The red has mostly faded (although my skin there is shiny and slightly irritated, which could be from pulling the Medipore tape off), but I appear to be developing a depression on my nose where the flappy thing hits it, which makes the bone above it look like a really obvious ridge. Think of actor Owen Wilson’s broken nose (http://www.imdb.com/media/rm169384704/nm0005562 for a photo), and that’ll give you an idea of what I look like this morning.

I’m positive I didn’t have the mask too tight, so obviously it’s a problem with where the mask falls on my nose. Has anyone had this same problem? I do think I could get used to this mask, because it seemed as comfortable as one of these things can be. Although it was hard to fall asleep, I managed to use it for 7 hours on both Friday and Saturday nights—not counting the time I spent mopping up water after I yanked my machine off the nightstand twice Saturday night —and I used it for 5.8 hours last night without incident after I put the machine on the floor. However, it’s not comfortable enough to compensate for looking like a Star Trek alien with a big honkin’ nose ridge.

Does silicone mask material stretch a bit eventually? Should I give it a few more days, or do I just figure that this mask is just going to leave a permanent mark and try another mask? I know I have 30 days to switch masks, but I don’t know if I’ll be going from the frying pan to the fire if I do. Sorry for the long post, but thanks for any help you can offer!

[base2balls]

Why not jusy go to http://www.padacheek.com and order a nose bridge protector???? You can get the size a/b and it should help you a lot and it is on a padded thing for the top of the mask so it will stay one the mask and it will feel a lot better. I ordred one and I love it. Karen is doing a wonderful service by making all sorts of things to help us all be more comfortable with our cpaps. She is working on mask liner thingys too and she has one for the quattro mask and she is working on some for nasal masks too. Her prices are great. She also has padded doodads for the straps on your headgear too so it will eliminate those red strap marks. There are pictures of the goods on her site. Have a look. Huggies, Fay.....Oh yes,,, welcome to the wolrd of hoseheads.

[wordgirl57]

Thanks for the welcome, base2balls! I actually e-mailed Karen over the weekend, but she doesn't have anything that will work for the Easy Life yet--she's trying to come up with something now, she said. The piece of silicone that's causing the problem is in an awkward place, sort of deeper inside the mask, so she's trying to work through the problem the location causes, I'd imagine.

[djr1215]

Besides the sore and swelling nose issue, I keep having air leaks up at the top/sides of the bridge of my nose with air blowing into my eyes all night long. It's not bad leaks, it probably wouldn't register on the machine as a "large" leak, but after a few minutes the air is very irritating in my eyes. Will the pad-a-cheek help or hinder the air leaks? I have (right now) a ComfortFul Gel mask

[Janknitz]

Is there a reason you chose a nasal mask over the nasal pillows your husband got?

You might want to try nasal pillows, they touch only a small part of your face and pressure areas like you are developing on your nose are rarely an issue. If you are using a nasal mask otherwise successfully, it sounds like you can keep your mouth closed at night, so you should do fine with nasal pillows--it's worth a try.

[base2balls]

The nose bridge protector doesn't really stop the leaks. I get the leaks and it hits me in the eyes too and that is a bit annoying. It's no wonder I pull off the mask some times at night. Grrr....but that nose bridge protector does feel good tho. Have a great day, Huggies, Fay

[wordgirl57]

The respiratory therapist called me to check on how things were going about an hour ago, so I'm going in Wednesday for a mask refitting and I'm going to try the nasal pillows, janknitz. The pillows freaked me out a little when I tried them during the sleep study which is why they gave me a nasal mask, but I'd much rather try to get over my aversion to having something at my nostrils than have to go through problems with my skin. I think the nasal pillows will also make it easier for me to sleep on my usual half-side-half-stomach position; I noticed (as I tossed and turned trying to make my mask fit to my pillow) that my husband slept in that position with no problems other than occasional air leakage this weekend (darn him! ). So we'll see what happens Wednesday.

[Janknitz]

Great, I bet you will like the nasal pillow mask after getting used to it. You will probably always have problems with nose pressure in nasal masks and FF masks given your sleeping position.

Some nasal pillow designs simply touch your nose, while others (nasal dialators) actually go a little bit inside of the nose. Ask to try the Swift FX and Swift LT for Her--they are very comfortable--and remember that nasal pillows work best with a LOOSE fit.

If you try the pillows, there are a lot of tweaks here viewtopic.php?t=15104 that will make a pillow mask even more comfortable.

[pam933]

I have the exact same problem with the Respironics EasyLife, although it sounds like it's not as bad as yours- I get a red mark that lasts for a couple hours each morning. I emailed Karen at padacheeks too, and I'm also hoping that she can come up with a nose bridge protector for it. Until then band-aids work pretty well for me (but it sounds like you have skin irritation issues with some of those). I also have the Swift LT for Her nasal pillows and I like them much better than the nasal mask, but some nights my nose is too congested to use them so I use the nasal mask.

[LinkC]

One caveat: If your pressure is high, you might have problems with nasal pillow "blowout".

[wordgirl57]

Just as an update, I spent my first night with the nasal pillow mask last night, and what a difference! I think the problem at the sleep study was that the tech gave me pillows to try out that were too large--a S, when I needed an XS--and they folded in on themselves and blocked my air and my nose. I'm sure she would have corrected the size right away had I kept them on, but I panicked and didn't give them a chance.

Last night, I slept pretty well--just a little restlessness getting used to the new device--and woke up once around 4 a.m. with the right side of my nose stuffed up (I've lived with that forever; I've had allergies/sinus problems since I was a little girl). Once I cleared up my head a bit and stopped coughing from the drippage, I fell back asleep around 4:30 and had the best hour of sleep I can remember in some time, till my stupid alarm went off at 5:40. I seriously considered calling in sick to work so I could sleep some more, but that wasn't an option, darn it.

It was great lying in bed for a bit before I went to sleep last night and being able to watch TV in a normal position, as opposed to the weird contortions the nasal mask had forced me to take on the previous few nights. AND I was able to sleep on my side and even my stomach without dislodging the pillows. Best of all, my nose ridge has gone down, and I don't look like a Klingon any more. Thanks to everyone who replied for your information and encouragement; it's so great to know I have a place like this to come to with my questions!