Swift LT - Shortness of Breath

I keep reading about being careful to not put the pillows back upside down. I have seen dozens of letters about how the mask doesn't work if you put it together upside down, which is so easy to do. Some even call it a design flaw that there is no built in way to tell the correct orientation, other than the logo facing up. It clearly says somewhere in the directions how to properly put it back together. I found it the first day when reading the stuff that came with the mask. There is a very clear "dot" or bump, on the frame of the head gear, only on one side, where the pillows attach. There is a row of 4 dots on the pillow, opposite the end with the letter size (S,M,L). All you have to do is "connect the dots". When you put it together, the dot on the gear goes on the same side as the dots on the pillow. They are all raised so even a blind person can find them.
Don

I used my Swift LT for the first time last night and must say that I too thought that the airflow was restricted with this mask. I have tried *many* masks, including several nasal pillow masks -- I own an Opus 360, a ComfortLite, a ComfortLite 2, and an OptiLife -- and this is the first mask that has given me this feeling. My straps were not on too tightly, and I *know* that the pillows were not on upside-down. I liked the way the mask feels and it wasn't leaking very much at all around the pillows, but I did have a very high leak rate as my mouth was leaking all over the place with this mask, even though it was taped. I normally tape my mouth and don't leak this much, so somehow the Swift LT was causing this excessive leakage. One other thing: I felt somewhat bloated, as though I were swallowing air, when I woke up once during the night. This has *never* happened to me before...

I guess I won't be using this mask very much as all this "weirdness" makes it very uncomfortable to wear, despite the good "face feel". And the icing on the cake: my numbers were *horrible* last night -- four times higher than usual!

I really liked the Swift - gave me good treatment.

The only problem was that I couldn't wear it after a few days - it seemed to push on my top teeth, to the extent that I had a sore mouth for the entire day after using it.

Naturally, the Resmed folk (really nice and knowledgeable people, I thought), said they had never had anyone experience this problem.

When it comes to masks, as we all know, it is a very subjective thing: what suits one, doesn't necessarily suit another.

Which is why I am seriously considering going the custom route for a mask - only stumbling block is the enormous cost...