Now here's what a ugly leak line looks like

Last night I had a bad night with leaks. Didn't know it till I looked at my reports.
Leaks so bad the machine shut off...came back on for about an hour it looks like and shut off briefly again. I never knew any of this was going on. Have no idea what happened so I will blame it on Aliens.

Here are the images of the reports. My worst leak by far. Looks the like leak was so bad it did allow some vents to occur. I never have a cluster like that one big cluster of Unknown events and I never have unknown events. So the allow the events to happen and the didn't know what to call them.

SleepyHead report along with zoomed in section of the worst part (though the whole night was pretty sucky) and a ResScan graph to show what it looks like with ResScan.
95% leak is way over acceptable.

So this is what a horrible leak line looks like. Probably the worst I have every had that last for a prolonged length of time..








Respironics folks who might wonder what the big deal is because your leak line start higher...remember this machin I have is reporting only excess leaks and Repironics leaks are vent rate plus excess leak rate so total leak i reported and your leaks will look different.

Here is an image of a good leak night and more common for me. Watch the scale..the highest scale number is 20 and my highest leak seems to be. Show while I have some spikes they really aren't at big as they seem like.

Yes, the two nights look very different. However, since this isn't even close to normal for you, I'd definitely chalk it up to Aliens and the full moon.

Tonight is gonna be a gooooood nite!

Wow, that is ugly. This fascinates me that it can be so different especially with you being unaware that it was happening. The little cluster is weird too. You must have wondered if you had opened up someone else's report.

I will get what I call a large leak but it is only 2/3 as big as yours. I don't wake up either, and I might have 1 or 2 corresponding events, not a huge cluster like that. It sure is ugly.

i'll trade ya.

I feel so inept at reading these graphs, for instance, the time stamps on the first few graphs of your bad leak night read like a normal clock would, 1:00, 2:00 etc. mine never look like that. Then on the first few graphs of your second example of a good leak night, the first few graphs AHI etc, the time stamp is 23:00 then 00:with numbers, that's how all my time stamps look, it really confuses me.
Also, I had to have some oral surgery that prevented me from using my Bella Loops, and I have recently been having some neck strap brusing with the Mirage FX. The DME suggested I try the Resmed Mirage Soft Gel, because he said you don't need to tighten it much as it has the dial feature on the forehead, and the nasal cushion will seal well. I have never tried such a heavy cumbersome mask, but gave it a try last night. He was right about not having to tighten it so I was able to get cpap treatment without hurting my VERY tender cheek and eye area. The straps remained loose too, my AHI a bit up to 1.1 where the Bella Loops keep it at .4 or so. In the leak numbers it says it went as high as 162. but that was in the begining of the night, I think when I pulled the mask away to get it seated properly. The leak graph looks great except for that beginning. So I guess if the leak line looks almost straight at the bottom of the graph, which is a first for me this would be the right mask for me? Is that right? This mask is very heavy shlepping it from side to side all night, during my wakeful periods I did not hear any air rushing out, and only heard the exhaust hitting the pillow once or twice.
Sorry for the long post, but I appreciate any input on this confusing mask issue.

For those confused about the time stamps.
Reports are like military time. 23:00 is 11:00 PM...once we pass midnight the times will look more "normal" because we revert to 0.... Like 1:30 AM is 01:30 military and 3.00 AM is 3:00 military time.
If nap time in the afternoon....say 3:15 PM...it would show 15:15 military time.

portiemom wrote:leak numbers it says it went as high as 162. but that was in the beginning of the night, I think when I pulled the mask away to get it seated properly. The leak graph looks great except for that beginning. So I guess if the leak line looks almost straight at the bottom of the graph, which is a first for me this would be the right mask for me? Is that right?

Short lived large leak spikes are probably from pulling the mask away to refit it. I totally ignore those and pretend they didn't even happen. That is usually the sort of leak lines I might see during the night.
I don't worry about those spikes at all if the rest of the night the leak line looks acceptable.

This ugly one above is highly unusual for me and I thought it was interesting that I did see a large cluster occur ...so the lack of adequate pressure did allow some events to occur and the large leak also prevented the machine from being able to sense what kind of events did occur. So proof that a bad enough leak will allow events to happen and also affect the machines ability to give the event a name.
I simply never have "unknown" events.

I had a good chuckle over this ugly leak night. It was with using the Bella loops It had been a while since I had washed them. Again, I never woke up that I remember when all this was occurring.
I have also had near perfect leak lines using the Bella Loops. So this one night was just a fluke. Interesting fluke though as I did learn something and I figure that nothing is a total disaster if something is learned.
BTW.. the last image with the decent leak line..was using the Bella loops also.

Thanks Pugsey, yes the Bellas are a fickle mask, I have skin that is a bit on the dry side, even then if I don't clean the Bella every few days it will leak like crazy. But the comfort is fantastic. So I guess it's a trade off, for me just now with the sensitive cheek area the pillows are out. I'm still trying to coherce my DME into the Aloha, they claim because they are NOT going to carry it, the Devilbiss folks will not let them have a sample, which they would in turn give to me. I have contacted the Devilbiss folks and they were very nice, but could not help me. So irratating when we pay soooooooo much for insurance but can't have what may work. UGH!

Pugsy,

I have to ask (for all the newbies out there): Did Mr. Red Frowny Face or Mr. Green Smiley Face show up on the short form of the sleep quality report on the LCD?

As bad as this leak line is, in eyeballing the total time above the Red LIne (24 L/min), it looks pretty close the magic "30% of the night with leaks above 24 L/min" that triggers a visit from Mr. Red Frown Face. But it's not obviously clear that you spent 30% of the night above the Red line and it would NOT surprise me if Mr. Green Smiley Face showed up after this horrid night.

And I simply want to point out to the newbies who are mainly looking at the Mr. Green Smiley face ever morning that may not be enough to conclude that leaks are no problem.

robysue wrote:And I simply want to point out to the newbies who are mainly looking at the Mr. Green Smiley face ever morning that may not be enough to conclude that leaks are no problem.

Thank you for pointing that out... I thought that seeing his smile meant everything was going along just fine!

Unfortunately I did not think to look at Mr Green or Mr Red face. I didn't check my software data until late in the afternoon after that leaky night. I never look at the on screen data anyway. I wouldn't rely on Mr Green or Mr Red anyway. Like Robysue...that is just too much of a window where a prolonged time in large leak might still show up with Mr Green.

I did the math and I think I would have needed about 120 minutes or so in large leak to get Mr Frowny to show up. I was way below that number of minutes at around 20 minutes with the gigantic leak. Given that I probably still had Mr Greeny Smiley after this ugly night....I can only surmise that those people who do see Mr Red Frowny must be having some pretty horrible large leaks for a prolonged time.

Everyone knows that I don't put leak lines under a very powerful microscope. I trust the machine manufacturers when they say that they can pretty much deal with leaks up to a point and as long as I don't spend much time up near that point I don't do much more than shrug my shoulders. If leaks (or mask fit) don't wake me up and pretty much stay below the large leak area...I am good with less than perfect leak. Should any leaks or mask fit issues disturb my sleep..then I do more than shrug my shoulders.
Anything that disturbs sleep (even if it is a minor leak) needs to be worked on because it is disturbing sleep and not necessarily because it is a "poor" or "acceptable" number.

Most of the time any large leaks that I see are very brief spikes and probably just re-adjusting the nasal pillows. This is the first time that I have seen the machine shut off and unknown events manifest themselves. Hard to believe I slept through it all but I did.

Pugsy wrote:This is the first time that I have seen the machine shut off and unknown events manifest themselves. Hard to believe I slept through it all but I did.

Pugsy... do all machines turn themselves off when events such as the ones you experienced happen? When your machine turned off and you didn't know, were you mouth breathing? Sounds kind of scary to me.

ems wrote: Pugsy... do all machines turn themselves off when events such as the ones you experienced happen? When your machine turned off and you didn't know, were you mouth breathing Sounds kind of scary to me.

Both ResMed and Respironics have a setting so that the machine will turn on automatically and turn off automatically if it is set for those parameters. I prefer to use those settings. Always have.
With the Respironics machines I think it was 60 seconds of not sensing any breathing and the machine would turn off. I haven't timed the ResMed machine to see how long it takes.

Other people like to have the machine keep running if there is a large leak or mask is off. Personal preference.

I have no idea what I did while the machine was off. It wasn't a hugely long time. I didn't wake up with dry mouth but I have no idea if I did some mouth breathing. If the leak was so bad that the machine turned off then I was probably getting enough air through my nose anyway. So I just imagine I was getting plenty of air through the nose via the leak.

Though a long time ago I did a test (while awake) to see if I could breath well enough through the vent holes (with mouth taped) and machine off and I found that while it was a bit stifling it was not distressing at all. I quit after 30 minutes because I got bored. I might repeat the test sometime now that I have a pulse ox..see if there is any significant drop with machine off and mouth closed. That experiment was done to see if I had any distress with mouth taping in the event the power went off.

Well, a bit more comforting. Me thinks I'd like to have the machine on if a large leak...

ems wrote:Well, a bit more comforting. Me thinks I'd like to have the machine on if a large leak...

Strictly personal preference. I would prefer to wake up with machine off so that I could fix things then to go along sleeping for a couple of hours with mask off or leaking so badly that therapy is ineffective.
Pros and cons to either way and we just decide on which is most important to us as individuals and set things up that way. It is nice that we do have a choice.