Help with wife who keeps taking her mask off.

[Crodley]

Hi all,

I've used my ResMed with nasal pillows for two years now and love it. My wife recently got her own and is trying to use it but there is a problem. She wakes up around 3-4 hours after she goes to sleep and takes it off and falls back to sleep. She remembers waking up for a cramp, or knee pain or whatever, but doesn't remember taking it off. When she wakes up hours later, it's off.

Any tips on how she can try to make a conscious effort to put it back on?

Thanks in advance, Crodley

[bwexler]

Some folks have used tape fasten the straps to the face.
Depending on her level of persistance try painters tape or duct tape or gorrilla tape.
Until she notices that she is takin the mask off.
If that doesn't work you could always try staples, or maybe hair pins or barretts. Anythig to inform her that she is trying to remove the mask.
21 days should be enough to break the habit.

[49er]

Hi all,

I've used my ResMed with nasal pillows for two years now and love it. My wife recently got her own and is trying to use it but there is a problem. She wakes up around 3-4 hours after she goes to sleep and takes it off and falls back to sleep. She remembers waking up for a cramp, or knee pain or whatever, but doesn't remember taking it off. When she wakes up hours later, it's off.

Any tips on how she can try to make a conscious effort to put it back on?

Thanks in advance, Crodley

Hi Crodley,

You also might ask her if the mask is comfortable. I know when I had a problem doing that with full face masks, once I switched to the cloth elan mask listed in my equipment profile, the problem stopped.

49er

[Crodley]

Thanks for the ideas. She's using the nasal pillows like I am. She says it's not uncomfortable but she does keep taking it off, so I don't know. I'm surprised these machines don't have an alarm beep to wake you if it comes off.

[Day_Dreamer]

This is common for new users

Disable the auto start auto stop. When she takes off the mask the air rushing in should be disruptive enough to alert her she has removed the mask

[Pugsy]

There are a few models of machines that do have an alarm for large leaks which would sound for a time period if the mask is removed but not available on all machines (and not the S9 Elite/Autoset) and those that do have that alarm feature...it's pretty pitiful. All they do is beep at about the level of beeping that we here with the beep that sounds when we turn the machine on. Not very loud and I personally slept through it often.
I have also slept through the rushing sound that DayDreamer is speaking of. It doesn't always wake a person up if they are sleeping deeply.
Once slept for about an hour with my nasal pillows blowing into my ear... confirmed with the hour long big leak on my software reports.

If it were me....I would scotch tape (or similar tape) the side straps to my cheeks in hopes that the discomfort with removing that tape might wake me up enough to stop the unwanted behavior of removing the mask when half asleep.
Eventually the brain will no longer look at the mask as an alien it wants gone and stop telling the subconscious mind to "get rid of that damn thing"...

[Demerit]

Try increasing her humidity level. Also please don't tape, get a chin strap and put on after the mask is on. A chin strap such as the tiara tms-09adj works well.

[ShelaghDB]

I fought with that myself for the first few months and couldn't remember taking it off at night times.

Believe it or not, in another Sleep Apnea forum, I had a man who gave advice, ACTUALLY get angry and told me to just leave on the mask.
It didn't matter that i told him that I hadn't any memory of taking it off and without that, I kept doing it every night.
But i swear, the guy actually gave me attitude for taking it off as if he did not believe it possible to do it without any memory of having done so and determined I "mentally" didn't want to wear the mask .......... /sighs ....... ( some of the terrible advice I have seen shocks me) LOL


In any event, only she will be able to figure it out but I was just getting stuffed up every night although until this experience, I hadn't any idea that I ever became stuffed up. I had never spent one day in all of my life having to give though to being stuffed up or possibly allergic to anything as i never had been.
So when people in the beginning start to give you advice about how to get around it, it doesn't register......for its not something you have ever had to think about..

In my case IF this helps here, I finally figured out and only last week what it seemed to be. I use a fan in my bedroom for white noise. I can't sleep with dead silence but I fell asleep a couple of times forgetting to turn it on ( had the TV on instead) and those nights i NEVER took it off. The nights I used it the fan that is, I would often, although not always, take it off.


I should add that this is also AFTER starting to use the nasal rinse. When someone first told me about that i thought they were off board...again Id never had to think about being stuffed up for i never realized that I was.
As soon as I started doing that, the nasal rinse, I also stopped taking if off at night.
But i changed rooms a few weeks ago after painting my place and I installed my fan in that room but this time it was much closer to my head and blew in the direction of my face, and I began to take it off again. Removed the fan, and through the night I made it.
Assume I might be allergic to dust?
Not sure what but getting stuffed up at night time is all it took to take that mask off.................

Perhaps some of that might ring with her.............Good Luck!!! It was pretty hellish every night until I found out what was causing it...

[ShelaghDB]

If it were me....I would scotch tape (or similar tape) the side straps to my cheeks in hopes that the discomfort with removing that tape might wake me up enough to stop the unwanted behavior of removing the mask when half asleep.
Eventually the brain will no longer look at the mask as an alien it wants gone and stop telling the subconscious mind to "get rid of that damn thing"...

I see a lot of people suggesting such but I can't fathom how that works. My experience, albeit limited as i have only dealt with myself, suggests that if someone is doing it, taking it off, in their sleep, it isn't because they don't want to wear it but are likely becoming stuffed up and can't breathe easily.

Thats what happened with me and recently I tried to get the hubby back on the machine but he tried 2x, and did the same, ripped it off in his sleep and when I questioned him further, he had found it hard to breathe as he too became stuffed up.
I understand its the #1 reason why people are not compliant??!!

If thats the case and one can't breathe, I would think it could create further problems such as panic if they were unable to breathe.
One night I felt myself getting stuffed up as I ramped up being to tired and lazy at that point to get up, I tried to keep myself calm and began to feel very uncomfortable so I tend to think people are wrong to suggest taping ones mouth, cheeks, etc, BUT THAT IS ONLY my opinion, not fact.

[Pugsy]

It's the asleep brain and the subconscious that is rejecting the mask for no other reason than it is too alien and the brain wants it gone.
Not everyone has congestion issues and those that do usually are aware of it as a potential reason.
Or for that matter have issues with the mask itself.
With nasal pillow masks (used by the person in this thread's reference) most people would just start mouth breathing if the nose got stopped up.

Sometimes there simply is no physical reason for the premature removal of the mask in the middle of the night other than the brain doesn't want to play nice with its new friend.
That's not saying that a person doesn't really want to make this work....it's just saying the brain is doing something we wouldn't do while awake.

It's not a life sentence to use a little tape on the straps...most of the time people only do it for a week or so till they get past the adjustment time and the brain is okay with its new best friend...the cpap mask.

[jduffeytx]

I just posted about my newbie experience with this. Only difference is that I'm aware I'm taking it off because the pressure is either too high or too low, and I'm just not getting good sleep, so I take it off out of frustration and generally being uncomfortable.

Like your wife, I'll sleep for 3 to 4 hours and then for some reason that's when I take off the mask. Could be that her body is telling her something doesn't feel right with the pressure, straps, shortness of breath?

[Pugsy]

he remembers waking up for a cramp, or knee pain or whatever, but doesn't remember taking it off. When she wakes up hours later, it's off.

Any tips on how she can try to make a conscious effort to put it back on?

If you or your wife can do the aroma therapy thing (meaning neither of you have issues with scents and aromas) you might ask your wife if she wants to try some aroma therapy.
A little essential oils on a cotton ball place on something (to protect the night stand) near the air intake filter.

If there's no reason she can isolate that might be causing a problem with the mask other than the brain just things it shouldn't be on the face and she likes aromas it might be worth a try. It helps some people.
Other issues might be mask discomfort or like someone mentioned maybe nasal issues. You didn't mention any so I assume there weren't any of those usual possible issues that would need to be addressed specifically.

All the various ideas we throw out there has helped some people and not others. It's the way of cpap therapy...everything comes with a big YMMV sticker.

[ButtermilkBuoy]

Some folks have used tape fasten the straps to the face.
Depending on her level of persistance try painters tape or duct tape or gorrilla tape.

Maybe try wrapping an Ace bandage over the straps and around the head.

[Crodley]

I truly appreciate the tips and pointers. One of the problems she had was never staying asleep long enough, she would go to bed at 4am and wake up at 7 or 8am. I kept telling her she needed a lot more than 3 or 4 hours a night even with the mask on.

She had some early appointments and started going to bed early like midnight and sleeping til morning and it's helping her keep the mask on. We'll keep checking the SD card to see how it's going, but so far so good.

Thanks again, folks!

[Julie]

If people take off their mask because they can't breathe, they either need to look at raising their pressure, or possibly changing their humidifier settings which can cause congestion.