Can someone ease my fears about full face masks

In particular I'm worried about suffocating if my machine goes out. Also I sleep on my stomach with my head turned to the side (left) and I'm wondering if I turn my head back and sleep on my face am I going to breath in carbon dioxide? My leaks are quite severe and I fear I may have to go with the full face mask. I have an old Amara view which would have to be rinsed thoroughly as it has been out of use for over a year. My dme says I'm out of mask changes so I'd have to buy one on my own.

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I think you're worrying unnecessarily. I use an AirTouch F20 full face mask and they're vented so you can breath quite easily without power while still having the hose attached. As for sleeping on your face, I imagine you'd have the same difficulty breathing with or without the mask. Besides, you would wake up well before suffocating.

ALL FF masks have an Anti-Asphyxia valve that prevents suffocation. If you have a FF mask, put it on...attach it to your machine but don't turn it on. Sit and breath to your hearts content. You will not suffocate.

My wife and I both use the F20 full face mask. Normally, I fill the water reservoirs in the early evening so they are ready to go when we want to go to bed. I forgot to fill them the other evening and my wife did not check before going to sleep. When I went to bed later that night, I checked my machine and saw it was almost empty. I checked hers and it too was almost empty. I turned off her machine, filled the water reservoir and restarted the machine. She never knew I had turned her machine off. She was able to breath normally with the mask on and the machine off. It did not disturb her sleep at all.

I have a story!

One night I was a little intoxicated and visited my girlfriend who lives separate from me. She was being nice and put my cpap together when it was bedtime. I put my mask on and pretty quickly fell asleep, around 3 hours later I woke up and noticed something odd with my breathing. I look over at my machine and saw it wasn't powered on, she had forgotten to plug it in. We had a good laugh!

That said, I lived. You can easily breathe through the mask if something happened.

I use a FFM, and I used to be worried about what would happen if the power went out. Hasn't happened yet, but one time in the middle of the night, for some inexplicable reason I apparently turned off my machine for about 15 minutes with my mask still on. I eventually woke up and restarted the machine, and everything was totally fine. So, cross suffocating if the machine stops working off your list of worries!

If I have to go to the bathroom at night, I shut off my machine, disconnect hose from mask(leaving mask on face) go do my business, crawl back in bed, hose up and go right back to sleep...all this with my mask still on. You need to just wear your mask sometime without hooking up to machine. Your brain will get used to it and you can breath easy...good luck.

On occasion, I have awakened to odd noises from the mask.
There was a power outage, the whole neighborhood was dark.
I was breathing easily, but the pop-pop-pop of the anti-asphyxia valve woke me up.

Jerseyguy wrote:Can someone ease my fears about full face masks

You will die of fear before wearing a mask kills you.

Play with the mask. Really! Take it apart. Take every small piece off and see what it does. Pay particular attention to the anti-asphyxiation valve. See how it works. Put it all back together and TRY to obstruct your breathing in the mask (best way is take off the hose and hold your hand over the part where the hose attaches. You cannot prevent the air from getting in.

I did that and it really helped me understand I was NOT going to suffocate.

Unless you are drugged or drunk, I'm pretty sure that not breathing will wake you up, just as it does with Obstructive Sleep Apnea. But for security, test your mask with no power on.

I've done the not plugged in part a bunch of times, and it takes me a while to realize that breathing is a little harder.

I woke up the other night and noted that the pressure didn't seem as high as usual (hovers around 20). And realized that I had never turned my ASV on before I fell asleep.

I breathed fine without the air (other than my AHI was probably higher than usual). You won't suffocate.

Wash Amara mask with soap (I use Original Dawn), rinse, spray with 100% white vinegar, let sit 2-3 mins, rinse well, let dry -- ready to go.