New to CPAP - Exhalations are "squeaky"

Hello to all,

Had my first night on CPAP last night (actually Auto Pap). I have the RESMED S9 auto pap with the nasal pillows (I think it's the Swift FX with the XS pillows). Last night I noticed at times that when I exhaled, there was a "squeaky" sound in my mask. It sounds like trying to breathe through the nose when you get congested - but I was not congested. It was very hard for me to go to sleep and was wondering if anyone here had experienced that? Could it be the size of the nasal pillows?

Thanks,
Karen (aka pocblue)

Welcome to the board. Sorry you need to join our little group.

CPAP therapy tends to make a lot of strange noises.

The most likely cause for what you're seeing is the "exhalation port" in your mask. (i.e. the place where the air leaks out when the mask is working properly.) Try cleaning, readjusting, checking for leaks, etc. Depending on your machine and its settings, your pressure may go up and down as you inhale and exhale and whistling can change as you breathe. Try and figure out whether it's you wheezing or your equipment wheezing.

I expect one of those ghosthunter "reality" TV shows to find that the sounds they're tracking is actually someone with a CPAP machine one of these days.

Please fill in the equipment on your profile so we can give you better information.

I had that experience one night: drove me insane. To determine whether it was the mask or the machine, I took the mask off and put it, connected to the hose and with the machine on, as far away from the machine as possible. I positioned my head so I could hear the mask with one ear and the machine with the other. It was the machine: earlier that day the DME had inserted a white filter. I removed that and the whistling stopped.

i can hear a very faint noise when I exhale also...but it's at the machine.... wonder if it's some sort of pressure relief thing.
have the same machine. It doesn't keep me awake though.... nothing does

D.

It could be the size of the nasal pillows. Also it could be just a tiny "crimp" in the pillows. On occasion I have had a bit of "squeaky whistling" on exhale. Very annoying and will sure keep a person awake. Sometimes taking multiple pull the pillows away and reseating to get it to stop. Once I got up and changed the nasal pillow because it didn't want to stop. Changing the pillow did give me peace and quiet.

Try a different size of nasal pillow or even different pillow same size. Try to reseat the pillow and/or change positions. If it is unrelated to the pillows, the noise won't change, if it is related to the pillows then movement or change in size might give a brief respite from it and let you know that something needs to be worked on with the pillows.

Interesting. I just picked up an S9 last week (yay!) BUT I have been having the same experience as you.

There is definitely a very faint "squeal" coming from the machine when exhaling. It's NOT a mechanical sounding squeal (like bad bearings) - it sounds more pneumatic in nature; like an internal airflow issue. I also noticed that it squeals less if I exhale slowly, and conversely, it is louder if I exhale with greater force. It thought it may be a pressure relief mechanism of some sort, (valve?) so I tried turning EPR on and back off but there was no difference at all.

So now the question becomes whether or not this is normal for an S9, or if perhaps we both got defective units.

Hope to hear from others about what is "normal"...


P.S. I am absolutely NOT complaining about the S9. It is significantly quieter than the S8 when it comes to noise transmitted through the hose. If you don't believe that, try putting in ear plugs to exacerbate the tubing-transmitted noise and then try both machines back to back. There is also a wealth of data, and it appears the S9 is reacting to some flow limitation events that the S8 ignored, but were ALWAYS picked up by my old PB 420E. (So as not to thread-jack, I'll start a new thread about that in the near future.)

When I had the same experience (with the same mask), I found the inner cone on one pillow had flipped inside out, and the thin edge of the silicone was acting as a 'reed'.

I don't use the Resmed machine BUT if it is truly a machine sound on exhale only, I would wonder if it was related to exhale relief. EPR. I would probably try different EPR settings and even turn it off to see if it made any difference.

If fiddling with mask doesn't change the sound at all then probably it is the machine and I would alert supplier about it. Can't sleep if noise keeps a person awake.

Try removing the white filter (it may be underneath the black foam filter). I had the same problem and this was an instant fiix. Good luck!