beards

[talyn777]

Does anyone have any advice, besides shaving, on how to deal with having a beard? Because I sometimes mouth breath, I have to have a full face rig.

Does anyone suggest a particular mask?

I am using a Quattro now and seem to be OK, but some nights are better than others. There is always some leakage around my chin. I have complex apnea, so I do not have constant aip pressure, so I worry that a changing leak rate will somehow fool my Auto SV machine.

Thanx,

Talyn

[Wulfman]

I vote for "shaving".
I have that mask and the Ultra Mirage Full Face (UMFF) and know how my leakage gets to be after a few days without shaving.
If forced to choose between my health and me ego......guess which one wins?

Den

[talyn777]

So AFTER I posted about the beard problem, I did a SEARCH on BEARDs and found that this has been adequately discussed several times before.
When asked why my hair is long and my face bearded, my reply is that my wife likes it that way. That is a priority for me and after 26 years, I'm not messing with success!

So that being said, instead I would simply like to ask of those who have beards and must have some ability to breath through their mouths (I do not understand how anyone could tape their mouth shut. my sinuses clam shut at the drop of a hat), what are your favorite masks?

I notice that I seem to have gotten one of the most popular ones, Quattro, already.
Lucky me.

Talyn

[Nodzy]

Talyn,
This may not be right for you, but I switched to the Hybrid FF mask. It has an inherent vent rate higher than most others. While it's far from perfect I do have very success with it.... and I have a beard, trimmed and shaped daily. It's short, but far past being just stubble.

I should mention that I cinch the mask straps tighter than most folks would in order to alleviate most seal leakage problems. But there are times in my tossing and turning where my movement and face position on the pillows causes the nasal pillows to shift and leak. But, my AHI average is hovering around 1.9.... even after 3-weeks of really bad chest cold that I got over two weeks ago. During the suffering with that cold I had AHI's in the 3.0 to 8.0 range.

But, I also had to cut off the chin flap of the Hybrid face seal in order to make it work for me... and it does. With the chin flap attached the face seal and nasal pillows leaked every time I moved my jaw. It's hardly a cheap mask, but also not the most expensive.

It comes with 3 sizes of face seals and 3 sizes of nasal pillows.... for a mix-&-match ability that'll fit many people from one box.

It may be worth a try for you.

Nodzy

[Fuzzy Guest]

If you searched posts, you probably saw several of mine...I've started a few threads on this subject, and chime in on others. I always get told to shave too, but like you, I'm not doing it. I don't mouth breathe, but I can't keep a lip seal. I've tried lots of FF masks. The Hybrid was useless for me..it was simply too small. I have a Quattro now. I tried it for two nights last week with the Mack's silicone plugs, and it still leaked like crazy...I slept for 7 hours and 22 minutes, and had a large leak for 6 hours and 54 minutes! Oddly enough, my AHI was still 1.4 for the first night, and 2.3 for the other. Go figure. I've rigged up a contraption, (I call it the Hannibal Lector) using some straps and a chinstrap that lets me use my CL2 or Opus nasal pillow masks with no taping or Polygrip strips. My AHI is usually around 2.0...once it was 0.6! Only problem I'm having now is the CL2 makes my nose sore (despite using Ayr gel), and the Opus leaves marks on my face still visible after 12 hours (despite having loose, padded straps). Obviously nothing is perfect, and nothing is going to work the same forever. My RT told me "You shouldn't have to alter your appearance to get therapy." She was the ONLY one to say that to me, here or anywhere else...that alone motivated me to figure this out for myself. Keep trying!

[goose]

When I need a FF mask (seldom) I trim the beard very short (goatee) and can sometimes get the HC431 seal fairly well, but the seals are pretty similar on the masks -- finding one that will conform to your face shape is the secret.

I've had the beard for 34 years (nobody that I know outside my immediate family has ever even seen me without at least a mustache!!!), but I'll tell you, if my life depended on me having a clean shaved face, bring on the blade!!!
I think after 26 years, your wife would welcome the lack of face hair if you explained the situation in detail and mentioned that without the treatment you'll die a lot sooner !!!!

Another alternative is poligrip denture adhesive (do a search of "our collective wisdom" at the yellow light bulb above each page). You can try a strip, cut diagonally and put with the thin edge towards the middle. That may work for you....
I wouldn't recommend tape unless you like to trim by yanking it out by the roots!!! (not my idea of fun !!).
I don't mouth breathe so I don't have the problem and use a nasal pillow style mask (Headrest). I also liked the ComfortGel mask but was plagued by eye leaks.....

The good news is -- you have options!!!!

Take care
cheers
goose

[DreamStalker]

My beard is pretty thick and full ... don't know if my hair is as long as yours though.

I don't normally use a FF mask (I use nasal pillow mask and manage to keep the air from leaking out of my mouth) but I have managed to get the Hybrid and Liberty masks to seal OK. I have those two as backup in case I come down with a sinus infection ... so far I have o avoided sinus congestion due to cold or flu for over a year and a half (lucky me ).

[Bearded_One]

I use Vaseline to make a diving make seal over my mustache. Perhaps you could use Ayr or K-Y jelly to make your FF mask seal over your beard. I am fortunate that I don't need a FF mask.

[Patrick A]

I have not shaved in about 4 months....I need to get RG to post a new aviator for me. I use a Swift II and have been for about a 8 months now.
When I first started cpap I had a beard. I used a comfort classic mask, never seened to have a problem. I say keep your beard!!!

[Assimilate]

I was having problems with mouth breathing. I found sticking my tongue between my teeth has stopped it. It took 2 or 3 days to get my tongue to stay there at night , but now I find even in the day I am doing it and breathing through my nose, which i never did before cpap.

As for the beard I can't help there as I use a nasal mask, but I did have a mustache which bothered me at first. I shaved it off got used to wearing a mask and now its growing back. I even had my machine report 0.0% mask leaks with it.

Also the vasaline trick may help you. I used to use it on a diving mask to get a seal around the mustache. No reason why that wouldn't work on a beard.

You don't say how long you have been using cpap? If its a short period I would persevere with a nasal mask for a while and try putting the tongue just between the front teeth to stop the mouth breathing. Its a lot easier to get a seal on a nasal mask than a full face one.

[blarg]

It may be worth looking into using a different method to control your mouth breathing. I use a chin strap with a Headrest Mask. Much much better than a full face mask to me.

[talyn777]

thanx guys, all good answers.

I used a CPAP off and on on an "as needed" basis for a couple of years.
I "thought" my apnea was mild and if I wasn't having sinus problems, often just didn't seem that bad. There were other problems that seemed a higher priority and I had a LOT of trouble adjusting to exhaling against a blast of air. So I gave up. For a while. And fought my other issues. Then I read some stuff about sleep disorders. . .

I have a multiply diagnosed / undiagnosed they don't really know why systemic all body neurological disorder. Call it Fibromyalgia and Epstein Barr Yuppie flu Chronic Fatigue Syndrome on steroids. And a pretty worn out and damaged spine, neck (four damaged discs) and back (my L5/S1 lumbar disc is completely destroyed). So I have taken a lot of different pain medications over the years, including fairly high doses of narcotics. Was Tramadol and Oxycontin 80 - 100 mg, now subutex, but smaller doses and 1200 - 2400 mg neurontin, but considering switching to Lyrica.

Narcotics/medications as a holding action, masking my symptoms to make them more manageble, while waiting for a surgery or two that I'd be willing to allow to be done on my spinal column. Damaged though it may be, I'm fairly fond of being able to use my arms and legs and bits. . Risk and probabilities. Trade-offs.

So I have been concentrating on the PAIN end of the equation. Guess what?
Narcotics exacerbate my sleep problems. Duh. Lack of sleep ups the ante on the pain. Ouch! Vicious circle.

Both I and my doctors have lost track of whether the problems are because of my spinal damage and hyperalgia or due to the medications and sleep deprivation. Somewhere along the line, about 8 - 9 years ago, my sleep started being less and less restive. I have taken every kind of sleep med in the book and several different kinds of stimulants, like Provigil and Adderall, to counter the daytime sleepyness, Narcolepsy.

When I looked up the effects of long term sleep deprivation and long term high levels of pain, I find most of the symptoms that I have, regardless of the actually cause, several pages of description of which I will not bore you.

Just no sleep and systemic neurological pain. Regardless of cause.

The long and short of it is that I have gotten lousy sleep for so long that we don't know what else is wrong with me because the slep dep alone pretty much masks everything else.

Which is how I came to be here. I'm trying like crazy to figure out how to actually get a good night's sleep with Complex hybrid sleep apnea. And to learn all of the terminology and variables that y'all bandy about. Flow rates and leak rates, AHI, EP/IP, etc. I also had no idea that sleep apnea was so closely linked to heart problems.

I'm grateful for this forum and the other one that I'm on the apneasupport.org group, because there's nothing like listening to those who have blazed a trail to get you up the learning curve. I don't know about the apnea community, but the chronic pain community is chock full of snake oil and bad rumors and urban legends, home remedies and a monstrous industry that is all to happy to help. $$$$ And it seems that we are finally figuring out that a whole lot of the pain problem is between the ears. Perception. I wasted a lot of time and energy doing stuff that somebody thought they heard that someone else had tried and it worked great. But it didn't. And it may just be the sleep deprived part of my brain that is perceiving pain where there needn't be any.

Just like people who haven't gotten sleep in a LONG time, people in pain are desperate to try anything that will make it go away, make it better, even for a little while, which makes us VERY susceptible. But if we stick together, sharing information like isotonic saline nasal irrigation with a little tiny bit of baking soda to clear the sinuses (which I did for the first time last night and it worked great), then we can help each other avoid some of the pitfalls. And teach each other some tricks that make it easier. Like how to get your mask to fit over your beard without leaking too much. Which masks work better etc.

Only a couple of us need learn any particular mistake or trick, then share it with the rest.

<smile>

Thanx again y'all,

Talyn

[sleepingvader]

Disregard the Vaseline suggestion my respiratory therapist just told me that Vaseline has been corroding my mask, which is why I've been having trouble with mine leaking air into my eyes, I'm waiting on their email back for additional suggestions, and I'll let you know.