Greater leakage rate with nasal pillows?

[RogerAN]

I made the switch from nasal mask to the Swift FX with pillows. The comfort level is much better, but my AHI's and particularly leakage rate, have increased in the week I have been using the FX. Is this normal? I would appreciate hearing from others.

[jaybee72]

I just started using a Swift FX on Friday. 4.5 years ago when I started all this I settled on the Resmed Activa, and have used it ever since till now. Looking through my data my leak rates were all very, very low. My leak rates on the Swift are noticibly higher when you look at the graphs; however I don't think they are terrible. I don't have access to them right now, but seems like they are hovering just below the acceptable line in rescan.

The noticable difference in mine are the amount of time the leaking is occurring. In Rescan the bar for each day tells peak leak, median, and 95% if I remember right. Before my peaks were all you saw whereas now my 95% is very noticable...

[Pugsy]

It is possible to get a pretty darn good near perfect zero leak rate using the Swift FX pillows.
If you aren't...the pillows may be sliding around or coming out of the nostril a little. There is always the chance of mouth breathing too.
Also....make sure you change mask selection in the menu of the ResMed machine to nasal pillows..the vent rate that is subtracted prior to reporting leak varies a little between the mask types. If you have the wrong choice in that menu it could affect the leak numbers and make it seem like there is greater excess leak.

This report below...see that nice flat zero to near zero leak line? Swift FX with Bella Loops.
The 05:30 ish...stuff. I was awake and fiddling with the nasal pillows. Then I got up. So I was awake that last half hour or so.

[RogerAN]

It is possible to get a pretty darn good near perfect zero leak rate using the Swift FX pillows.
If you aren't...the pillows may be sliding around or coming out of the nostril a little. There is always the chance of mouth breathing too.
Also....make sure you change mask selection in the menu of the ResMed machine to nasal pillows..the vent rate that is subtracted prior to reporting leak varies a little between the mask types. If you have the wrong choice in that menu it could affect the leak numbers and make it seem like there is greater excess leak.

This report below...see that nice flat zero to near zero leak line? Swift FX with Bella Loops.
The 05:30 ish...stuff. I was awake and fiddling with the nasal pillows. Then I got up. So I was awake that last half hour or so.

My stats are not as good: I tried to post an image from SleepyHead, but so far haven't been able to do that. On my machine, the leakage rate has been between 15.0 and 38. Interestingly, when the full face or nasal masks have significant leaks, it is obvious enough to cause me to wake up. I haven't been able to detect any leaks, though I do occasionally breath through my mouth. With the other masks, my chin strap helped, but with the Swift FX, the chin strap makes it much worse. On balance, I slept better last night than I have for weeks and my leakage rate was 18.

[john5396]

Roger,

Did you update the mask type to nasal pillows on your S9? The S9 uses this setting to account for the intentional leak from different masks.

[RogerAN]

Thanks to other's help, I have been able to attach the image of my SleepyHead chart for last night. Comments welcome!
[/img]

[RogerAN]

Roger,

Did you update the mask type to nasal pillows on your S9? The S9 uses this setting to account for the intentional leak from different masks.

Yes, I did in fact change the mask type to nasal pillows on my machine. As you can see from my last post update, the numbers didn't look too good, but I sure felt like I slept well.

[Pugsy]

From the way you were talking I was expecting some horrible leak line.
That is far from horrible.

The spikes that go pretty high are rather short lived. It's not like they lasted an hour. I suspect the pillows became unseated briefly.
You had a couple of times where leak was around 18 (21:30)...and a short amount of time span a little above 24 (23:30) . At 02:30 leak for a short while around 13.8 L/min.

It's not a real pretty leak line but I have seen far worse. Heck, I have had far worse just recently.
Leaks are something that we will never totally win that battle.
Don't beat yourself up over this report..yeah those spikes are rather ugly but they didn't last long..you can zoom in real close to see how long but really for the most of the night the leak rate was acceptable. Most importantly you feel you rested well and the leaks weren't huge enough and long enough duration to trash the bulk of your night. The bulk of your night the leaks probably didn't hurt things horribly.

You will want to stabilize things as best you can and in time you will. I have been using nasal pillows for nearly 3 years now. I have reports like that near perfect one I showed you and I still have reports like this too (see image below). I think this was one day last week. I laugh, shrug my shoulders and move on. Most of my reports are somewhere in between with random spikes here and there.

[DrPepper00]

It is possible to get a very nice leak with the Swift FX. I use the Lansinoh lanolin on my nose. It helps seal the pillows and keeps my nose from getting sore.
My leak line never goes over 24 and rarely spikes up to 20. (Except for the time I tried to answer the phone without turning off the machine!)

[RogerAN]

From the way you were talking I was expecting some horrible leak line.
That is far from horrible.

The spikes that go pretty high are rather short lived. It's not like they lasted an hour. I suspect the pillows became unseated briefly.
You had a couple of times where leak was around 18 (21:30)...and a short amount of time span a little above 24 (23:30) . At 02:30 leak for a short while around 13.8 L/min.

It's not a real pretty leak line but I have seen far worse. Heck, I have had far worse just recently.
Leaks are something that we will never totally win that battle.
Don't beat yourself up over this report..yeah those spikes are rather ugly but they didn't last long..you can zoom in real close to see how long but really for the most of the night the leak rate was acceptable. Most importantly you feel you rested well and the leaks weren't huge enough and long enough duration to trash the bulk of your night. The bulk of your night the leaks probably didn't hurt things horribly.

Thanks for the encouragement Pugsy! I really appreciate your feedback --- put's things in a better perspective for me.

[RogerAN]

It is possible to get a very nice leak with the Swift FX. I use the Lansinoh lanolin on my nose. It helps seal the pillows and keeps my nose from getting sore

Thanks, DrPepper00! I will need to check on the Lansinoh lanolin for my nose. I think that I tightened the straps a little too tight last night and woke with some soreness in my nose. Appreciate your help!