Seems that I am late to the party over the Dreamware FFM but I would like to jump in anyway.
I have been on CPAP since December 2011 with a diagnosis of central apnea and have gotten really good results with a ResMed 9 VPAP ASV and recently it was replaced with the new ResMed 10 ASV.
I have fallen in and out of love with a lot of masks over the past 7 years, trying to deal with my mouth breathing and my sensitivity to anything stuck inside my nose or enclosing it, and since every FFM I have ever tried resulted in loud leaks which could never be eliminated, I have been using the original standard Dreamware successfully since it came out, so that my nose is very, very happy; but my mouth breathing continues to be a constant challenge. I have run the gamut of chinstraps, neck brace, and taping.
Until the Dreamware FFM came out, nothing gave me satisfaction with my mouth breathing except combining the original Dreamware with a headband over my mouth which had to be constantly readjusted numerous times during the night in order to keep it in place. That is why I got excited to try the Dreamware FFM and discovering that it is the first and only
one piece solution which seems to work for me, so I would really like to keep using it.
One huge improvement over the original Dreamware is that, since the beginning of my cpap use and trial of
many masks, I have been plagued with back straps that keep sliding
upward and top straps that keep sliding
forward; but the two straps of the Dreamware FFM seem to perfectly enclose the rounded back of my head; hence no slippage.
Another is that I really like the piece that fits over my mouth, because I have a moustache and a full beard (not as exaggerated or as long as my Rip Van Winkle image on cpaptalk) and the soft cushion of the mouthpiece feels really comfortable over my mouth, especially after I discovered that I can adjust the "tilt" of the mouthpiece to suit my own jaw by playing with the top and bottom straps, loosening one and tightening the other.
But I am having one big problem. Periodically, I am assuming whenever my new ResMed ASV attacks a suspected oncoming central with a sharp blast of air, I get a loud, vibrating raspberry sound out of the side of the mouthpiece of the D/FFM, so loud that it wakes both of us up; and this is happening often enough that I am getting the "Red Face" every morning on my machine and bad reports on SleepyHead. ("Your mask is leaking way too much… etc.!") Remzzzs samples didn't help a bit, and taping under the mouthpiece didn't seem to make any difference either, not to mention being painful to remove, even using Micropore and running warm water to remove it in the morning.
If at all possible, I am determined to make the D/FFM my mask of choice, as it has come closer to solving my mouth breathing than anything else tried over the years, while retaining the comfort of the fit under my nose. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to deal with the periodic loud raspberries? (Pending a hoped-for solution, I have ordered 3 different kinds of firing range density earplugs from Amazon for myself and my sig/other as she too is suffering from disturbed sleep.)
Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Best wishes, Nate
