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tom--

you are TOO funny. i know this is not funny, but you are.

caroline

Tom - I think you have tortured yourself enough. Time to call the "game" - and I'm not saying it's rained-out (just a little cpap humor there, folks). ...

RG said,

Switching occasionally also makes me appreciate all the more the extremely light comfort of my deconstructed Aura.

I'm with you Gal. After my hour-of-hell with the Swift the other night, I just said, "AH AURA", and the deconstruction just makes it all the better and more stable.

Tom, before you give up on pillows, you owe it to yourself to try the Aura - and deconstruct it if you have the "you know whats". There is absolutely nothing to unseat the pillows to cause leaks. And it vents towards the wall at the head of the bed.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AURAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Last night was my third night in a row sleeping with the Swift. With due respect to Tom, Linda, et. al. who haven't had success with it I've got to say it is the The Interface For Me. Talk about your different strokes...

Once again I went to bed with the Ultra Mirage FF mask. It was reasonably comfortable but tends to develop leaks. It's funny but the leaks are so minor, mostly around my chin, that unless it happens to leak in my eyes it doesn't affect my sleep. But after two hours I checked the machine and my 95th-percentile leak rate was 1.24L/sec (just like the 1.26L/sec the night before). That has simply got to be interfering with my therapy so I'm going to save the full-face for nights when my nose is stuffed.

So at midnight I switched to the Swift. It takes like two or three minutes to establish a leak-free seal and then it works pretty much to perfection. This time I didn't really get any nasal irritation or soreness at all, although I did have one itch off and on throughout the night in a certain spot at the tip of my left nare. A couple times I had to scratch it and then reestablish the seal on that side.

I slept well for long stretches and must have had plenty of REM because I was having the most vivid and elaborate dreams I can ever recall. So it's a simple conclusion. I'll be using the Swift from now on.

I have SWIFT envy.

I did reasonably well with the SWift last night but I am developing a pressure sore on my left Nare towards the inside of the lower part of the nose that seperates the left & right nare. (What's the part number for that ?)
It's red and raw. The right side is ok but this looks like ground meat. (Sorry)
I've been using Ayr Gel with the mask and Neosporene during the day to heal things up. I would suspect that after this much time,

I would have broken my nose in.

I think RG might have it right, maybe it's time to move on to another mask. I just hate to throw the towel in. IT's a shame the nose is such a focal point on our face. This pressure point on the inside of my Nare is RED.

I could stop traffic with it. I'm concerned that I will have the same problem with all pillow systems because of the shape of this Nare.

For some reason my left Nare makes a jog right at the center of the nose when most others are straight.

I know, it's my mothers fault. Yes, Must be HER genes.
(no offense ment to any mothers on this forum)

Best,

Tom

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): swift

Tom, this might be obvious and I have not read this whole thread but have you tried another size of the Swift? My DME orginally set me up with the Large pillow and I was hurting just like what you describe. Then for grins I switched to the medium size. Voila. A little soreness but I think that will eventually go away. What happened I think is that by switching sizes I changes the contact point and angle slightly, but it was enough to fix the problem. Try something like that if you have not already. May help you.

Tim

Thanks TIm:

I did try switching to Med but it doesn't seal. When it comes to size , can you say LARGE

I've tried everything with it.

Swift 7 Tom 4.

I did make it thru the night last night but the sore I have on the side of my Nare looks like something you'd see in an ER.

Gang: DO you think I'm NOT a canidate for ANY pillow system because of my Deconstructed Nare?

Best,

Tom



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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): swift, seal

Deconstructed Nare

It's great you are keeping a sense of humor - even though you must be horribly frustrated.

If I had an extra Aura, I would send it to you to try. But unfortunately, I don't.

tom--

i don't know about your deconstructed nare, but sounds like a good question. heck, i was going to ask what a slotted nare was a few pages back, but i didn't want to disrupt the flow of the conversation.

i'm pretty sure of one thing, though. if your nose is red and sore from swift, i think you are just making it so much worse by pouring on ayr gel. ayr gel is great if your nose is not inflamed, or is mildly so. but it has irritants. when you put the stuff on/in your sore, inflamed, red nose, don't you want to jump through the roof? your nose may be sore because it is dry, dry, dry.

dermatologists will tell you that straight petroleum jelly (vaseline/generic) is the best moisturizer there is. people use vaseline for burns, which at its root, is a dryness problem. people don't use it every day as a moisturizer because of practical problems having so much grease on your skin. ayr first cleans you out and second moisturizes. when i have gotten a bad swift nose, i use both at the same time, but only because i need to be cleaned out. if i'm just sore i use vaseline. in fact, i hypothesized facetiously, when i was sticking the plugs up my nose that the vaseline would "glue" them in (which is not really true, because the vaseline gets absorbed into your nose "skin" tissue during the night.)

i'm just trying to help. but it seems like you have two problems going on that may be unrelated. Or if they are related, solving either one may help you fix the other. First, the darn Swift doesn't seem to fit your nares. Second, you have pain. I am suggesting you use a different tactic for the latter.

good luck. sorry to see you suffer so much.

Yes, I have a slotted nare, with a harpin turn in it

When I first read about Nares - something one doesn't think about round/slotted - Whhaaaat??

Now I'm ocncerned about whether I can use pillows -

I may switch from Ayr to Vaseline - heck I've got some grease I use on the Garage door - maybe that'll help

Seriously I've heard about the Vas but wanted to stay away from the petroleum product but now:

"IT'S TIME TO TAKE THE GLOVES OFF"

See Tom doing Swift throw - See Tom with Head Lock on Swift - See Tom get sent to a neutral corner for HITTING BELOW THE BARRELL.

I will try the Vas. If it doesn't work - I will kidnap my Swift, throw it in a trunk, drive it around town for a few hours, not make any ransom demands and bury it in a Football stadium end-zone in New Jersey.

And I just ordered a Aussie Heated Hose - WHAT AM I NUTS???

Tom

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): swift

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): swift

tom--

there you go. but worse comes to worse, you can always make ransom demands on ebay.

caroline

lol... just had to laugh at the though of it.

I think my Swift is great, in general, but like all things it could be improved. I persist with the Headrest because my several times with it indicate how much freedom it offers to twist and turn like a fish dangling at the end of a line (thanks so much RG) and how much freedom it offers for a side sleeper. I am a twister, turner, rock n' roller during the night and what complaints I do have with the Swift have to do the fact that it will break its seal if I dig into the pillow too much, the confining feeling of the headgear and its marking (even with Padacheeks). But, as I experiment it is good to know I can always return to the Swift for a decent night.

Next up, I think, is the CL2. It looks to offer many of the benefits of the Headreast without the rainout headache, the pebbled forehead, the creeping back strap, and the rubber bands and the requirement to tear the entire thing apart and re-fabricate it to make it work at its optimum. To refer to Linda, sort of, I don't have the... to rip it all apart and see $$ down the hose if it doesn't work for me and it aggravates me to think I would have to.

SB

Tom has the tenacity of a Pit Bull.

Pit Bull

My snout just isn't quite that well shaped.

I'd like to bite that Swift and fling it across the room. Jump on it, drop it out of a plane, strap it to an M-80, bake it in an oven, drag it from my car, tie it to a rail road track, drop it down the sewer, grind it in a wood chipper, bury it in a dung heap, send it postage due to Castro, attach it to my cars exhaust pipe, use it as a horses tooth pick, convert it to a Hawaiian Nose humming instrument.

Best,

Tom

Hi Tom,
cpap.com, as a matter of fact dis-recommend (or whatever the word is...) nasal pillows for slotted nares.... users have argued with that - but you might be one of those the cpap.com are right about.

However, if you still want to try a pillows interface, consider the Breeze.
It is much narrower than the Swift, so lying on your side won't push the pilows into the middle (that part for which you had no number...)

Furthermore, in the Breeze, each pillow has its own hole to nestle in, so you can angle the pillows independently of each other, and you can even use a different sized pillow for each nare, if that is necessary.

I gave up on the Swift after one night - the way it pushed into the middel of my nose was unbearable.

I now alternate the Breeze and the Aura (Headrest).

O.