3 nights with my new Liberty...

...and I gave up and went back to my FF Quattro 'cuz I was soooooo tired!!! I plan to try again with it, can't seem to figure out what's wrong. It is a difficult mask to get situated it seems. The nasal pillows fit fine, the mouth mask fits fine...I think that there's not enough room on my face between the bottom of my nose and my upper lip. I'm going to wait until a weekend when I have not alot of things going on and try again...I do LOVE not having that forehead piece, reading in bed is soooo much easier and it's alot cooler. I just can't get it to seal and stay sealed. So I put my Darth Vader mask back on last night and slept like a baby.

And JennMary...after I've given it one more go if it's still not working I'll send it your way to try it out!

Coleen

yea, it's no Hybrid, that's for sure.

Coleen,

I too have a new Liberty, I've had mine four days and have had simular problems. The day I got the mask I watched the video and reviewed the little manual. I went to my bathroom and put the mask on and adjusted it just as instructed. I layed down on my bed and hooked up my machine for leak checks and found that the mask was too loose when laying down. I made some small adjustment and WOW what a seal, no leaks and quite! So, took the mask off, set it aside to await bedtime.

At bedtime, put the mask on, hooked up and turned on my machine. What a disaster! Leaks everywhere and nothing I did helped the leaks. I took the mask off and switched to my old reliable Swift for the night.

Night two I tried again. I started over, I loosened the straps, readjusted them per the instructions and climbed into bed. Again the mask was loose, but hooked up anyway and once again had leaks. How strange from the first time I pressured up in practice. So I tried adjusting, but this time I move the mask up on my face, compressing the nasal pillows and tightening the straps a tad more. It was like night and day, leaks gone, noise gone, it was wonderful.

The wonderful was not to last, all was well until about an hour before my alarm was to go off, I started to get momentary leaks at the side edges of my mouth. Every time I start to drift back to sleep, my jaw would slacken and I'd get a leak. Nothing I could do would help this. My alarm went off and I got up.

Night three was basically a repeat of night two, except I did not have to adjust the mask in the beginning. And once again about an hour prior to alarm time, I started the mouth edge leaks.

Night four started like nights two and three ended. I could not stop the intermittent leaks. I was tired and frustrated, so swap the Liberty for my Swift and slept blissfully until this morning.

Checking my leak stats shows I'm having the leaks, they are not as bad as they seem, averaging about 5 ml above what they should be for my pressure.

One thing I have found with my Liberty that I don't like and neither does my wife, is the mask "clicks" with any movement. The clicking sound comes from movement of the swivel and I've yet found a way to fix this, but will work on it some more; anyone out there with any ideas on how to fix this?

Unless I can figure out my leak and clicking problems, I'm not likely to use this mask for my "every night" mask, I think I'll stay with my Swift and use the Liberty as a backup. For those nights I'm too stuffed up for the Swift. I'm also thinking of trying the Hybrid, which was frankly my first choice, but I got such a good deal on the Liberty, I couldn't pass it by.

Long post just to say your not alone and suggest you try moving the mask up more on your face (closer to your nose) and see if that helps. It helped me, maybe it can help you.

Sleep Well!

---gary

Thanks for the feedback. I don't think I can get it any further up on my face...I think the main problem is there isn't enough room between my nose and my lip and too much 'gear' trying to fit into that small space. Even if I got a smaller size I think the problem would then be it would be too small for my mouth. I wish there was a ff mask that had no forehead piece...that would be the perfect mask for me! LOL

I just got my Liberty yesterday and really like it so far. I believe that everyone's face is so different and the selection of masks is so vast that it is hard trying to find THE mask that works best for you. I hope you both find something that works well cause it is sure miserable trying to fight that battle. I don't think a 0 AHI does any good if you wake up a gazillion times a night trying to tweak your mask.