Tight mask fits prevents proper therapy

Okay, as you may already know, I bought the Padacheek barrel cozy for my condensation problems. This required me to tighten the mask to prevent leaks from occurring. What I did not know up until this morning is that this actually worsened my therapy. Last night I repeatedly woke up in the middle of dreams. I actually remember my dream clearly as if I had watched a movie. I woke up so tired and did not know why. (Same thing as yesterday)

So what I did was I tried to see if the tightness has something to do with it ( I am using Swift FX). So I held my breath for a few seconds. Then as the gush of air started entering my nasal area, I barely felt a force of air. I tried this several times.

So I took off the barrel cozy and loosened my mask to the way I had it previously. Suddenly as I tested it, I automatically noticed a difference when the force of air set in.

The strangest thing is that my machine did not pick these up in either Encorebasic or Sleepyhead. But I came to the conclusion because of the dreams I was having and testing this out while conscious. (Most of them were nightmarish anyways)

Has this happened to anyone else?

I'm not sure if your testing method is scientific enough to have proved anything (too many variables, including many you may not have even considered).

In any case, ANY mask only needs to be tight enough so that leaks are avoided. A mask can be too tight as long as it does not cause pain, and in the case of nasal pillows, air flow is not restricted in any way by the tightness.

I use the Swift FX and have overtightened on occasion. You will know if it's too tight because your tip of your nose will be pulled up (think pig snout).

If you had an ASV unit with the automatic feature that provides air when it detects breath cessation it would be easier for you to distinguish whether the tight mask fit impedes the flow of air into your nasal canal. In my case, it does.