Are my leaks causing any harm?

Hey all

I received my diagnostic in August 2018, but that was just a formality, i had apnea since my early '20, i just didn't bother to treat it (life endangering stupid, i know). The sleep test returned with horrific results, AHI 99.6, medium SPO2 87% and min SPO2 63%. After a month or so of accommodating with different masks, my choice was the Dreamwear. Now the thing is i have full beard. My guess is that the choice in masks alleviates the beard problem a bit, but i don't know to what extent. I'll attach the SleepyHead screenshot of my last night sleep. I know 5h is a bit short, but that's how long i usually sleep, maybe due to having bad sleep nights for such a long time.

Your leaks are fine


You are using a Philips machine and the large leak setting in sleepy head is set at 24L/M this is a Resmed thing. You can go into preferences and turn it off as you have a Philips machine or raise it to a more sensible value of 75L/m

Unless any minor excess leaks are disturbing your sleep....you aren't having any leaks anywhere near large enough to impact the therapy effectiveness.

See the LL line on the events graph....that's large leak and you aren't having any and even if you did the machine can compensate for quite a bit. The machine's ability to compensate really isn't impacted until you reach over 100 L/min for total leak (that top leak line on the graph).

Actually a very decent leak line....the minor variations are mainly just associated with pressure increases. As the pressure increases you can expect that top leak line to move upwards....more pressure means more vent rate/intentional leak and it's to be expected.
That top leak line on the graph is the mask's vent rate plus any excess leak.

Thank you for the wonderful and reassuring responses.