Air Leak Question

Hi I'm new to cpap, my sleep study showed severe apnea with over 70 ahi. I have been getting great results since I started in November,events ranging from .0 to .5, but I had switched to a Dreamwear nasal cushion in mid January (small as med sticks out too far)from a pico because despite great results, it was giving me bumps and sores along the side of my nose toward the upper side of the triangle so I wanted to try something less invasive. However, right from the start with the pico I had relatively minor leak rate, but once I switched masks to the cushion, everyday I get the adjust mask message ranging from a 4/20 to a 16/20 usually running around 12/20. This nasal cushion has a small hole for the air to escape right in front so it feels like a more forceful, concentrated escape whereas the pico didnt have that, so in my mind, this is where the air leak comes from. It also feels like more air is escaping where is connects to the tubing. I have tried 3 different tubes and 3 different mask frames and its always the same. In my mind, considering my ahi is so small, this shouldnt be a problem, but I want to make sure I am doing things right. Thanks for any insight.

Ali

aliinfl wrote: ↑

Thu May 13, 2021 7:12 pm

Hi I'm new to cpap, my sleep study showed severe apnea with over 70 ahi. I have been getting great results since I started in November,events ranging from .0 to .5, but I had switched to a Dreamwear nasal cushion in mid January (small as med sticks out too far)from a pico because despite great results,

welcome to the zoo!

can you tell me what a "pico" is?

@Zonker - Pico is a nasal mask from Respironics. https://www.cpap.com/productpage/philip ... e645a39961

@OP - All masks are built so that you can exhale your CO2 and not re-breathe it back into your body. Some masks have exhaust systems that shoot straight out front and others have exhaust systems engineered differently. In the case of DreamWear nasal, it has and exhaust port in the front by your chin, and also an exhaust that comes out of the elbow where the air tube connects to the mask frame at the top of your head. The exhaust leaks are built-in and expected. If you have other leaks, that's a different story of course.

clownbell wrote: ↑

Thu May 13, 2021 9:21 pm

@Zonker - Pico is a nasal mask from Respironics. https://www.cpap.com/productpage/philip ... e645a39961

thank you for that. seems to be an affordable mask.