ResMed AirMini- bad mask seal reading

I now have an AirMini in addition to my Philips DreamStation2 (replaced under recall) and for the first month of using it things were totally fine - good scores for usage hours, mask seal, low events, etc. I’ve used a CPAP for over 10 years with good results and I think I know when my mask seal is good or not. But then the mask seal reading started dropping to 12-13 out of 20 and has slowly gotten worse. I am using the Humid X waterless humidifiers with the P10 nasal pillow mask and having no problems other than the mask seal reading. I am changing DME and haven’t sought help yet from them yet but I also bought the AirMini online so I thought I’d post a question here. Is this a flawed reading of mask seal with this machine? I can’t feel any leakage at all around the nasal pillow but obviously the Humid X leaks just below it, which seems to be the way it works. It seems no different from when I was getting 20 out of 20 for mask seal. Does anyone have any insights into mask seal with AirMini? Thank you in advance.

foodAppsTwins wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 02, 2023 7:09 am

Is this a flawed reading of mask seal with this machine? I can’t feel any leakage at all around the nasal pillow but obviously the Humid X leaks just below it, which seems to be the way it works.

There are other places for unwanted leak besides at the nasal pillow itself and just because you can't feel a leak doesn't mean that there isn't a small tiny hole somewhere else.....like in the hose itself.

It's not a flawed reading....the machine is sensing excess leak (besides the intentional leak from the vent holes) somewhere in the circuit.

You have some sort of excess leak somewhere in the circuit.
Been there and done that myself and in my case it was a tiny hole in the long hose that wasn't always positioned to where I could feel it.

Wish you could get a leak graph with the Air Mini because then you could see if the excess leak was consistent or intermittent. That would go a long way in figuring out where the leak was coming from.

Thanks for your reply. Interesting that a small pinhole leak could cause a drop in the mask seal reading from a consistent 20/20 to 13/20 or lower. So here’s what I have tried:

1. I taped over the holes in the Humid X to block the airflow and tried a mask seal test - result was a good seal.
2. I also tried removing the nasal mask and Humid X canister and held my finger over the end of the hose and tried a mask seal test - also a good seal. Probably not surprising since whatever algorithm the app uses to assess mask seal must account for the air that escapes through the Humid X.
3. I replaced the Humid X and headgear, put on the mask as if I were to use the CPAP and filled a sink full of water. Then I submerged as much of the hose as I possibly could without risking electrocution to see if I could find any pinhole leaks like you described. I could not find any sign of leakage anywhere along the hose.

So the mystery remains. All I can do at this point is to buy a whole new mask and hose and see if that makes a difference. There is also a possibility that there is a small leak at the fitting between the hose and the AirMini that might explain the bad mask seal reading.

One other possibility is that at one point I read somewhere about using the AirMini without the Humid X canister since humidification is not needed for everyone. Running the AirMini without the Humid X filter most likely resulted in more air leakage at the empty canister, which might have screwed up the AirMini’s calculation of the mask seal.

I’ll post another reply when I know more. There’s still a possibility that there is a flaw in the way this mask seal is assessed in the app.

Have you ever read the explanation of how the Score is calculated. It's on your app. Bring up your nightly score, tap on the seal to see month to date, and then tap on (?).

Thanks for the tip but when I go to the nightly score there is no way to see how the score is calculated. I am using the ResMed AirMini app which seems different from some of the other ResMed apps in terms of UI. Tapping on each element of the nightly score such as mask seal does nothing - no (?) buttons to click and nothing about ‘month to date’. I’ve tried using another ResMed app but it says you can’t use it with the AirMini.

Another reason to use the home machine all the time.
Airmini is for temporary, TRAVEL use.
Extended or full-time use is expecting too much of the device.

Well this was a long time coming but I think I have a definitive answer to what caused my bad mask seal reading in the AirMini app. I finally bought a new ResMed AirMini setup pack for the AirFit P10 nasal pillow mask and when I used the all new setup with the AirMini, the AirMini app showed good mask seal, no problem. So then I started swapping in each part of my old mask and hose setup one by one to find the root cause of my leak. The culprit turned out to be neither the mask nor the hose - even with these components, now more than a year old, my mask seal was actually just fine. But the problem was with the casing for the HumidX filter. When I swapped in that one part from my old hose and mask assembly, with the new hose, mask and HumidX filter, the mask seal was bad.

At one point my pulmonologist had suggested that I could try using my CPAP without humidification. So in order to give this a try, I took the HumidX filter out of the system and used the AirMini that way for a few days. That was a bad idea. What must have happened is that with the HumidX filter removed, the additional air flow through the empty HumidX casing blew out these fine screens along the periphery of the casing where the air normally escapes from the HumidX filter. That was the source of my excess leakage which caused the app to indicate a bad mask seal.

ResMed obviously recommends replacing these parts more frequently, but it was interesting to see that the standard AirMini hose system should never be used without that HumidX filter in place. I have found over time that my therapy is fine without humidification when I use my DreamStation 2, so it would be nice if ResMed would offer an alternative hose system for the AirMini without HumidX. The aftermarket hoses and fittings I have found are bulky and poor quality.