My Therapy Thread

[Julie]

Have you tried liners - that help seal better all around like the Pad-a-Cheek(.com) ones?

[Dog Slobber]

then it just stopped working that good

it just doesn't work anymore

Saying it doesn't work anymore, doesn't say anything.

What does "it doesn't work any more" even mean?

Increased leaks? Excessive AHI? More wake-ups? Increased Aerophagia? Intolerable dry mouth?

State a specific problem and symptoms you want to address or need advice on.

[jlsmithseven]

Well my symptoms of dry mouth have gone away, but now I’m dealing with leaks like never before. Didn’t change a thing in pressure or mask or anything but all of a sudden it leaks like crazy. So that’s what I’m battling now. Also I don’t feel great in the morning after using the settings described in post 1 of this thread.

[Dog Slobber]

Fiddling around with machine settings, especially EPR rarely fixes leaks. The exception being very high pressures, which your not on.

Leaks are almost always caused by poor fitting masks, mouth leaks or both.

Are you being woken by the leaks, or just being bother by the presence of them on your charts?

Weight loss will change the fit of a mask.

Explore mouth taping, refitting mask, changing mask, a full-face mask.

[jlsmithseven]

Fiddling around with machine settings, especially EPR rarely fixes leaks. The exception being very high pressures, which your not on.

Leaks are almost always caused by poor fitting masks, mouth leaks or both.

Are you being woken by the leaks, or just being bother by the presence of them on your charts?

Weight loss will change the fit of a mask.

Explore mouth taping, refitting mask, changing mask, a full-face mask.

Well, I'm not usually woken by them, so I guess it's mainly charts. But I think that's also a big reason why my mouth is so dry. I don't want to use Xylimelts forever. I believe the leaks are from my mask but it makes no sense because I use the Dreamports just like I always have. Unless more moisture is pushing them loose I don't really know. I am on AUTO for tube/moisture.

I lost like 12-14 pounds since RobySue provided those settings that worked, 8.0-8.6. I have explored mouth taping but I still get the leaks, and I've visibly woken up to my dreamports leaking already which is weird because they never did. I guess I'm putting my head into the pillow more often now?

[jlsmithseven]

Just so everything is updated, last night I chose to put my machine on CPAP mode of 8.0, with No Ramp and 3 EPR. Only reason I did this is because I studied my past charts and it seems 8.6 pressure was causing a lot of the leaks. Last nights AHI was pretty high at 5.4, but I woke up feeling great and leaks were minimal. I looked at all of the events that occurred and most were CA right after I fell asleep or was waking up early in the morning.

I had a few OA , but when I looked at them they didn’t resemble real events either because breathing wasn’t normal beforehand and there was no spike afterwards. I’m going to try these settings for a week and reply with some results to see if the events calm down some.