My mask looses seal every night after 4-5 hours

[king_alvaro]

At the beginning of the night my quattro mask seals perfectly and a couple hours later it leaks. No matter how I adjusted it keeps leaking. This has been happening for the last couple nights. I just changed from a resmed fx to a resmed quattro about 4 days ago. Since day one I have leaks. The reason I changed masks is because I have nasal congestion and I was opening my mouth during the night. I did not want to use a chin strap because of my nasal congestion.

It is hard adjusting to a FFM but I am trying, but I cant tolerate the leaks. After 3-4 hours I wake up and go back to my resmed fx for the rest of the night. But I notice that I usually dont wake up rested with the resmed fx because I open my mouth.

Any ideas why the leaks after 3-4 hours of usage.

[Wulfman...]

At the beginning of the night my quattro mask seals perfectly and a couple hours later it leaks. No matter how I adjusted it keeps leaking. This has been happening for the last couple nights. I just changed from a resmed fx to a resmed quattro about 4 days ago. Since day one I have leaks. The reason I changed masks is because I have nasal congestion and I was opening my mouth during the night. I did not want to use a chin strap because of my nasal congestion.

It is hard adjusting to a FFM but I am trying, but I cant tolerate the leaks. After 3-4 hours I wake up and go back to my resmed fx for the rest of the night. But I notice that I usually dont wake up rested with the resmed fx because I open my mouth.

Any ideas why the leaks after 3-4 hours of usage.

A couple of possibilities are the bed pillow pushing it out of alignment if you're a side-sleeper or sleep position (like on your back).

That being said, I've also been having some issues with higher leak rates and a few short duration large leaks lately in the first part of the night. I have some suspicions, but am not sure. Some of it could be deep sleep or REM stage stuff (dreaming). They're nothing "serious" that is affecting my therapy and I don't even know about them until I look at my reports in the morning. But, I'm seeing some pretty flat lines and then some lines that look like a big city skyline.
I know it's probably not my pillow and I don't sleep on my back. It's happened before and is usually periodical in nature and duration.
Remember that sleep stages are supposed to cycle somewhere between 90 - 120 minutes.

Don't know if that helped, but good luck with yours.


Den

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[Julie]

And have you tried lowering your humidity setting (or even turning it off) to see if your congestion improves?

[LSAT]

Its common for your face to shrink during the night. Face muscles relax while you are sleeping. I think the key is cleaning your face really well before putting on the mask. This will give you a tight seal to begin the night and in my case the mask is still sticking to my face in the AM. Have you tried a mask liner?

[sleepydc]

At the beginning of the night my quattro mask seals perfectly and a couple hours later it leaks. No matter how I adjusted it keeps leaking. This has been happening for the last couple nights. I just changed from a resmed fx to a resmed quattro about 4 days ago. Since day one I have leaks. The reason I changed masks is because I have nasal congestion and I was opening my mouth during the night. I did not want to use a chin strap because of my nasal congestion.

It is hard adjusting to a FFM but I am trying, but I cant tolerate the leaks. After 3-4 hours I wake up and go back to my resmed fx for the rest of the night. But I notice that I usually dont wake up rested with the resmed fx because I open my mouth.

Any ideas why the leaks after 3-4 hours of usage.

Could be any number of reasons. I had the same problem at first, and for me, I figured out that my face was "changing shape" as my muscles relaxed and I fell asleep. What worked when I went to bed no longer worked later in the night. I figured out that as my face relaxed, my jaw muscles would relax, my mouth would open, and the seal would "break" and then wake me up. Based on some dry mouth and other things, I figured out that I was a mouth breather -- which is why I went with the FFM to begin with. But obviously for me, even with a FFM the mouth breathing was causing problems.

For my FFM (full face mask) use I found it started working a whole lot better when I started using tape. Some people end up using chin straps with FFM's. I tried and disliked chin straps. For me, the "partial tape method" solves most of the issues with "mouth breathing" and "draw drop," which interrrupts the seal of a FFM (full face mask) because my face changes shape when that occurs and the seal is broken. At this point, I hardly notice it's there -- and (in combination with some of the techniques described below) it promotes nasal breathing, which seems to be a pretty good thing while sleeping, helps prevent leaks that wake me up, helps prevent "chipmunk" cheeks, and helps prevent drymouth. It's not for everyone, but here's what I'd suggest:

I have now been using surgical tape for about a year now, and it has worked wonders and works very well for me. I use silk surgical type tape you can get off of Amazon, 2" wide. There's also a 1" wide version. If you gently pull it off in the morning, there's usually no problem. Just type something like "3M-Durapore-Silk-Tape 2 inches x 10 yards - box of 6" or the like on the Amazon site. For me, it works very well with a full face mask (FFM) -- the FFM helps prevent pressure problems if my jaw does open slightly, and the tape substantially prevents my jaw from dropping and also thereby keeps my face largely in the same "position" as I fall asleep (thereby avoiding the inevitable leaks that can occur when your facial shape changes from the point of initial placement/tightening of the mask). .

I was actually worried about not being able to breath with the tape if there was a shut-down. I've found that this set-up, however, offers very few worries:

For the silk tape, apply a 2inch wide strip vertically from a spot just above your upper lip (the indentation just below your nose) down to just under your chin (with your lips closed and your jaw in a comfortable place). As you bring the tape and press it underneath your chin, "fold" the edge back on itself (maybe a 1/2 inch or so) so that the edge hangs a bit from your chin -- makes for easier removal in case of emergency. Because it's only 2 inches wide and vertically placed, your entire mouth is actually not taped -- you can, in a pinch, breath around the edges -- and the silk tape itself I've found by accident (in opening my mouth with it being placed) will also let a little air in if you open your mouth forcefully. In short, it doesn't take too much force to maneuver or breath around the silk tape, but at the same time the tape seems to mostly keep my jaw from dropping when I relax and fall asleep, which is the whole point. [The setup also seems to work best when combined with the technique, described elsewhere on this site, of learning to relax with the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth as your mouth is closed, which "seals" the mouth from the nasal passage and helps prevent dry mouth]. (In placing the tape, I've also found it helpful to focus on firming the contact with the skin at the point below the nose and under the chin more than the lips, which seems to leave a little area of the lip region feeling less taped, if that makes sense). [To remove with less "tear", try pulling up vertically from underneath the chin till you reach your lip, then pull across "horizontally" for the remainder.]

The usual caveats about making up your own mind about this, considering safety issues, etc. apply, of course. But frankly, I'm surprised more people don't do this.

Good luck!