Interface prescriptions?

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gracie, quite a few people (including me) find that having two or three masks to rotate among on different nights helps keep any one mask from causing pressure or chafing problems.

If you like your Breeze otherwise, but find it rubs after several nights in a row, it would be handy to have, say, an Activa and maybe one other pillows type mask like the Aura or Swift on hand. Expensive to have a collection, but hey...if we're uncomfortable, sleep suffers. Rotating masks from night to night can help keep each mask feeling better.

Are you using Ayr gel or KY jelly..a dab at the nostril openings to reduce friction from the nasal pillows rubbing there? That can help too.

Got your main air hose above and out of the way...hung up high on the headboard or wall in some way, at least a foot above your head, to help prevent the main air hose from tugging on the headgear (of any mask, not just the Breeze)?

As for the sleep doctor supplying equipment - could be good or could be bad, I suppose. Even an independent DME can be either way, too. Would be interesting to see what he said if you asked him point blank if he would specifically prescribe the Aura mask for you. And would his own supply employees then refuse to order it for you?

When mentioned reading about the Aura on the net, the staffer dripped scorn: “Oh you read all sorts of crazy things on the net and pick up wrong ideas!” Then she told me that I must get used to the fact that all interfaces are going to be uncomfortable.

LOL!! Spoken like a true "demi-god professional". Especially the "you must get used to (it)"...substitute whatever they don't know how to cope with very well for the "it". She'll probably never learn better ways precisely because of that scornful attitude toward information actual users can share. rotfl!!!

On the other side of the coin, you have people like IllinoisRRT (Christine) who is a godsend to her patients. She not only offers us good advice on this message board, but she has consistently listened to what users are saying, complaining about, and finding that works. Such a difference between a good "DME" and a defensive scornful one.

Thanks, RG.

Read a long time ago that one should be wary of doctors who sell the medicines they prescribe: That introduces a profit motive that can undermine their objectivity. It cannot always be avoided, but it should be whenever possible.

My soon to be ex-doctor is violating that standard unnecessarily.