What is a good seal/leak rate?

Hi,

I’m 26 nights into starting CPAP therapy. My question is on what is a good seal/leak rate. I am using an Airsense 10 autoset, with an N20 nasal mask. The “My Air” app & report says that my average leak rate per night is 20.4 L/min. The individual nightly rates run from under 10 to almost 30 L/min. I know the machine can supposedly compensate up to 24 L/min. I still feel leak flutters at night, and am trying out chin straps or tape to help with mouth breathing. Still, the leak rate seems high and isnt really getting better. What are some of your thoughts? Am I overthinking? Thanks in advance.

The MyAir report for leak is not an overall average number. It's what we call a 95% number and all that means is for 95 % of the night you were at OR BELOW that number. The or below part is real important.

The machine can actually do a decent job of compensating for leaks up to around 35 to 40 L/min...so you are well within the range where therapy itself isn't negatively impacted all that much.

Now from a sleep perspective though....if you are feeling any leak during the night (no matter if big or little) and it's waking you up then it's a problem. Anything that disturbs sleep is a problem.

Thanks. Yeah the air leaking does wake me up occasionally. I know the mouth breathing isnt helping either. Overall I guess its not going too bad yet I still feel like it should be better.

Nthernlgts wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 26, 2019 3:39 pm

Thanks. Yeah the air leaking does wake me up occasionally. I know the mouth breathing isnt helping either. Overall I guess its not going too bad yet I still feel like it should be better.

The mouth breathing is part of the leak calculation